LAW AND PUBLIC LEGAL EDUCATION - GHANA

The second scramble for Africa beckons. This time with some difference. Only two players. After Brexit and its painful effect, the UK is desperately looking for other weaker trade partners so that it can hold on to it's weakened dominace. On the Other side, the EU wants to be even stronger and keep their dominance. Africa is the target for this greatness of course. The USA has shown Europe the wrong signal with Donald Trump in charge. UK promising £20m investment in Ghana. Yes Investment. I don't know when they will recup their investment and how much it would have further depleted our resources. Germany also promising to build a VW assembly plant. Just a day after UKs promise. Both of them have left Ghana to other African countries. What is the use of the AU? These are all good. But I dare say will only benefit the politicians and not the people. Where is our 1D1F (One district one factory project)? Why has the Central Bank used its monitoring power to reduce confiden...

Last week, a 70 year old man died after about 7 hospitals in Accra had refused to admit him with the same reason…. “ No Bed ”. There was no vacancy to admit the man for treatment. So his family traveled  for several hours through traffic and bad roads in some instances hoping to have him given care. But alas, he gave up the ghost. Ooo the sting of death could not wait for the excuses from the nation’s hospitals. The Poor old man is gone. Jesus is not here to raise him again… at least, not immediately like the case of Lazarus in the Bible. Life once lost cannot be gained again. It’s as if this is the first time this has happened. Perhaps, his family has some media connections so his death has become the symbol of sacrifice that has awakened people to call for an end to the ‘No Bed’ syndrome. I am at least happy about it especially because the phenomenon is gaining attention and may be given attention by government and leaders in the health sector. Somewhere in April...

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...