Ghana's ADR law is internationalised - Austin Gamey

Mr Austin Gamey, Chief Executive of Gamey and Gamey Group says Ghana’s Alternative Dispute (ADR) Law is internationalised so there is the need to build capacity of personnel to appropriately handle arbitration matters.

He said the country’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 2010 (Act 798), was couched to meet international standard, making it possible for mediation of transnational character to take place here in Ghana.

Mr Gamey made this known at the opening ceremony of the 17th batch and graduation of the 16th batch of the Gamey and Gamey Academy of Mediation Professional Executive Master (PEM) of ADR.

“The ADR campaign is very much hinged on the capacity of people trained for the purpose, our success and ability to mainstream ADR in business and social life is dependent on how much skill we have been able to develop in the field and how diversified the skills and interests are,” he said.

He said, though, there have been some strides in mediation processes in Ghana, many organisations and individuals did not still have sufficient knowledge on negotiation skills leading to needless labour unrest and conflicts.

Ghana has had its fair share of some disagreements and which otherwise could have been resolved peacefully, but were allowed to degenerate into violent conflicts resulting in loss of lives and property, he said.

He cited conflicts relating to land, chieftaincy, labour, religious and political party activities as those that have had a heavy toll on productivity, running into millions of lost man-hours.

Mr Gamey said the discovery and subsequent exploration of oil in Ghana has made it more imperative to equip Ghanaians with the requisite appropriate dispute resolution skills to prevent conflict in all sectors of national live.

“There is still untapped fields in ADR; in land, employment relations, banking and finance, aviation, mining, intellectual property, matrimonial matters, intestate succession, education and health,” he said.

Since 2002 more than 300 participants from diverse fields of endeavours have gone through the 25 weeks PEM ADR programme in 16 different batches.