Ghanaian press spotlights President’s warning against political colouration of judiciary, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s warning that it is dangerous to give political colouration to the judiciary is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said it is dangerous to give political colouration to the judiciary.
Historically, the President noted, there had not been political colouration of the judiciary in Ghana, largely because of the critical, controlling role of the Judicial Council, a non-partisan body, chaired by the Chief Justice, in the process of judicial appointments.
“It has been that judicial appointments are conducted essentially on the basis of professional merit and suitability.
Appointments to the lower courts, the High Court and the Court of Appeal are done by the President exclusively on the advice of the Judicial Council.
In the case of appointments to the Supreme Court, because of its unique position in our judicial structure, there are the additional requirements of the consultation with the Council of State and the approval of Parliament,” he said.
“In the overwhelming number of cases of justices-designate to the Supreme Court, that approval has been given on a bi-partisan basis.
You can count on the fingers of a hand the number of justices-designate whose approval met less than unanimous consent,” he said.
Addressing the 23rd annual conference of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) in Cape Coast yesterday, President Akufo-Addo said the new concept, as suggested by former President John Dramani Mahama, of “NPP judges” and “NDC judges” was extremely dangerous and represented the most brazen attack on the independence of the judiciary.
The newspaper says that the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has voiced its disapproval of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s use of its conference platform to engage in political campaigning against former President John Mahama.
The GBA’s Public Relations Officer, Saviour Kudze, said: “What the president said today is rather unfortunate and we condemn it. The aspect we condemn has to do with his appeal to Ghanaians, essentially campaigning, urging them to vote against Mahama simply because he commented on President Akufo-Addo allegedly appointing NPP-aligned judges, as stated by President Mahama.”
Kudze in an interview on Citi FM further noted, “And also bringing up the issue of the investigations allegedly linking former President Mahama to the Airbus scandal. Our platform is not supposed to be used for that and then we condemn that aspect of President Akufo-Addo’s comment. We are not going to allow anybody to use our platform to campaign politically for or against any opponent.”
However, the GBA clarified that it would not issue an apology to Mahama, asserting that they had similarly criticized him in the past when he engaged in similar behavior.
Earlier on Monday, Akufo-Addo strongly rebuked Mahama for his recent allegations regarding the judiciary being influenced by judges aligned with the ruling NPP party.
He characterized Mahama’s comments as “very dangerous” and contended that they constituted a “brazen attack on the independence of the judiciary.”
The GBA stated that while they shared Akufo-Addo’s concerns about the independence of the judiciary, they did not endorse his methods.
“The GBA believes that the best way to protect the independence of the judiciary is to ensure that all politicians, regardless of their party affiliation, respect the rule of law and the separation of powers,” their statement emphasized.
The Ghanaian Times reports that Ghana remains committed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)’s single currency agenda despite the current economic challenges facing the country, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance, Ms Eva Esselba Mends, has said.
She said the country’s economic challenges would be reversed and sustained macroeconomic stability re-established.
Mrs Mends stated this at the 53rd meeting of the Technical Committee of the member states of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) as part of the 2023 Mid-Year Statutory Meeting of the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM), West African Monetary Agency (WAMA) and West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), which began on September 5, 2023 and would end on September 15, 2023 and being hosted by the Ministry of Finance under the auspices of the Bank of Ghana.
As part of the programme, Ghana was elected to chair the Technical Committee (TC) for the next six months.
The Gambia chaired the Committee for the last six months.
Ms Mends, who was the representative of the host country, said Ghana’s performance on the harmonised convergence criteria had always been above average.
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance said Ghana’s economic growth remained positive despite the significant impact of multiple crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war.
“Government remains focused and resolute on restoring macroeconomic stability. Ghana, like many other economies, continues to contend with record-level inflationary pressures. Nonetheless, outlook in the near-term is positive as inflation has peaked,” she stated.
The newspaper says that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has disclosed that between 100,000 and 200,000 metric tonnes of cocoa beans have been smuggled out of Ghana to the neighbouring countries, from January to date, this year.
“We believe that there are some high powered businessmen involved in the smuggling of cocoa beans…looking at the volume of cocoa beans being smuggled, it is not something that a cocoa farmer can do”…no farmer will be able to transport such volumes,” he noted.
Mr Aidoo, who raised these concerns here in Kumasi last Friday, during an interaction with journalists said that smuggling of cocoa beans from Ghana to neighboring countries, such as Togo and La Cote D’Ivoire, was having a nega¬tive toll on the Ghanaian economy.
He said some suspects were arrested transporting cocoa beans in articulated trucks to Togo, and cautioned that offenders could be sentenced to jail for five years minimum and maximum 10 years.
In a related development, Mr Aidoo expressed concern about the smuggling of fertiliser, and said the fertiliser policy would be reviewed, to remove the government’s subsidy so that the cost of the commodity would be added to the price of cocoa for farmers.
The CEO said that the free supply of fertiliser has intensified smuggling of the product, and that he had meetings with the farmers to accept to buy fertiliser themselves.
He urged cocoa farmers to use organic manure, such as poultry compost, to rejuvenate the soil for higher yield.
Mr Aidoo appealed to journalists to help educate farmers on the use of organic manure.
On government’s decision to open the cocoa season this September instead of October, he explained that it would enable the COCOBOD to guarantee the quality of the cocoa beans and also enable cocoa farmers to get money ahead of reopening of schools.
“When schools are opened in October, it affect farmers as most of them would borrow money for upkeep of children and family,” he said.
GIK/APA