The Vice President and Head of the transitional team, Papa Kwasi Amissah-Arthur is proposing the amendment of the Transition Act 845 which makes provisions for the transfer of political power from one democratically elected President to another.
He said the Act made no provisions for the transfer of power from an incumbent government to itself as happened in the case of President Mahama.
Speaking to the press in Accra, Mr. Amissah Arthur said ‘’we have identified quite a number of areas where we have to hopefully revise and amend the law Act 854.’’
He stated that ‘’the Act 845 assumes that somebody will be in power and another person would have won the election and that’s the assumption.’’
He indicated that ‘’in every election where the president may win his re-election like it has happened now, the composition assumes that two president’s one an incumbent and the incoming would have to form a transition team.’’
He further added that “incumbent specifies which ministers will be members from his side and then the incoming president because he wouldn’t have ministers at that time will then propose an equal number of people.”
He therefore called for a better clarification of all the provisions contained in the Act as well as a re-consideration of the provisions in the Transition Act.
According to him, “the first provision that needs re-consideration is in relation to the swearing in of parliament.”
“According to law 845 there were two parliaments in Ghana in the last two days which is not what the constitution expects.”
The constitution states ‘’that parliament will be in existence for exactly four years from 7th January and on the 4th anniversary on the midnight it is dissolved and then a new one is formed,’’ He added.
Paa Kwasi Amissah Arthur also stated that the transition team ”tried to get around that by saying that you have to swear the oath and then two days later it will become effective. A lot of lawyers said this is a very an impractical way of addressing an issue. So we decided to go strictly according to the constitution so we ignored Act 845 in that respect in order for this to happen.”
Source: Citifmonline
