LAW AND PUBLIC LEGAL EDUCATION - GHANA

On Tuesday 20th March 2018, news broke that Ghana’s cabinet has approved an agreement between Government of Ghana and the United States of America (USA) to allow the latter to establish what has been termed a military base on the soils of the former. This awakened vehement disagreement from citizens who were largely opposed to the move. Various arguments have been cited for the mass disagreement from the public. In spite of this, Parliament within 3 days has approved the agreement. Of course the minority NDC which has in fact signed similar agreements in the past, staged a walk out during the approval just to score political points. They have vowed to reverse the agreement in 2021 if they should win the elections of 2020. As a social Prophet, I prophesy that if they win, they would just like the NPP did on the GITMO 2 matter, make a big U turn and give reasons why they cannot reverse. The real problem with our parliament is that the majority is always overly political. They refu...

As usual, my alarm loudly disrupted my sleep at about 4:50AM. I had to get up for work. By 6am we had set off and I was a bit angry because I felt my sweetheart had caused our lateness. I am usually not a happy man in the mornings by the way. Leaving home late in Accra means, you are likely to endure a very uncomfortable traffic for hours before getting to office. The distance between Adenta (where I live) and Asylum Down (where I work) can be travelled within 20 minutes when there is no traffic, yet it usually take an hour and a few minutes for us to get to work when we leave before 6am. Leaving home at 6am or later would mean you could take close to two hours to work. As we drove through the bumpy dusty lane to join the main road, I put on the radio. CITI FM had given me another reason to worry. This time not for my usual egoistic personal wellbeing. I was worried about street children in Accra. It’s not as if I have not always been worried about them. I do chip some of th...

 Serving as the president of a nation is one of the highest jobs anyone can ever get in a lifetime. Not only is it high in power, but also in prestige, respect, networking and if you like spirituality. The president of any nation is at the time of his term the image and persona reflector of that nation. The endurance of the 1992 republican constitution of Ghana has blessed Ghana with three living former presidents: John Mahama, John Kuffour and John Rawlings. The theme for this article is centred on happenings soon after the first non-John named individual was sworn into office as president of the republic under the 1992 constitution. The controversy started with the immediate past president, John Dramani Mahama who had made a request to the transition team that as part of his end of Service Benefit (ESB) he would prefer that he is allowed to stay in the official residence of the Vice President of the Republic instead of the republic building a new house for him as recomme...

For almost two decades, Ghana was under the PNDC/NDC regime which at its inception was embraced because of its promise to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich.   Soon after its operation the reality dawn on Ghanaians that this regime was not going to be able to achieve the utopian promise of making the poor equal with the rich in the society.   However, the military government had entrenched itself through intimidation and dictatorial tactics coupled with the Charismatic personality of their leader which appealed to the many masses who loved him. Gradually, the military junta agreed to a new constitution which became enforceable after January 3, 1993 after a general election in the previous year which was participated by various political parties at the time. It is sad to say that although Ghana attained independence status in 1957, multiparty democracy started making gains in Ghana after a long period of political instability and military gymnastics.   ...

Knowing that the issue of the legality of whether or not University of Ghana has the legal authority to impose road tolls is quite debatable, I would rather pose a few questions to the moral conscience of Members of the University Council and Management of the University who approved such a policy. As it stands now, it is not clear whether the imposition of the road tolls will qualify as a tax under the article 174 of the constitution, 1992. Maybe the courts can clear that for us. My first question is this, if there is the need to charge a road-toll at all, why would the University like to charge 100% higher than what the state charges on our major roads? On our major roads, private cars are charged 0.50p and the University of Ghana is proposing to charge GH¢ 1.00 for private cars and GH¢ 2.00 for commercial cars. Secondly, what is the reason for the charge?  Is it to pay off the loan they contracted to repair the University roads or it is to control traffic inflow int...

As I read through the 2014 Budget statement presented to parliament by the Government of President Mahama, I keep asking myself a few questions. My quest to find answers to these questions has lead me to engage in an examination of the budget, whiles making projections into its viability and otherwise. Government of Ghana needs about 30, 544,300,000.00 (30.5 billion)to run government for the year 2014. (Page 31 of the 2014, budget statement)This appears to be a colossal amount. Meanwhile, on page 43 of the statement, we find that total revenue plus grants has been pegged at 26,001,900,000.00 (26 billion). The statement is suggesting that The Ghana Revenue Authority with its appendixes (VAT, CEPS etc) cannot raise GHC 30 billion for the management of the nation for the year 2014. The GHC 26 billion is even inclusive of expected grants from donor countries and international bodies. This appears very funny to me that Government of Ghana will need to go round the world to seek loans befor...

I am sure that if people are asked to describe Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, one person out of every two Ghanaians on the street will use some of these words to describe, the just demised president of the Republic of Ghana: God Fearing, Peace Lover, Humble, Calm and Modest. I never had any personal interaction with President Mills. In fact the closest distance that I had with him, was when he was Candidate of the NDC in the 2008 Election. He had come to the Large Lecture Theatre of the University of Cape Coast to speak to students and ask for our votes. At the time, I was the SRC President and as I received all other candidates who wanted to come, I equally received Prof. Mills and granted seat on the stage with him as he addressed the Students of the University of Cape Coast in the Large Lecture. He spoke very eloquently about how education he wanted education to be in Ghana, and I remember one sentence he made which has always been on my mind. ‘ Education must be responsi...