Motor Companies, which are responsible for the maintenance and repairs of vehicles allocated to judges of the Judicial Service have embarked on the seizure of the vehicles when sent for servicing or repairs due to non-payment of bills owed them.
To-date, the Judicial Service cannot bear the high cost of maintenance of the vehicles which has led to most judges driving without functioning air-conditioners.
Several judges have also had to either maintain the cars and provide tyre and batteries themselves, as the high cost of maintenance can no longer be supported by the approved budget for the Judicial Service.
Responding to questions on the floor of Parliament last Thursday, the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Nana Akuffo-Addo said each judge of the Judicial Service, comprising a Chief Justice, nine justices of the Supreme Court, 18 justices of the Court of Appeal, 41 justices of the High Court and 17 chairmen of the Regional Tribunals, are entitled to a chauffeur-driven car for their official use as part of their conditions of service.
He said in September 1996, Government acquired six Audi cars for the Supreme Court judges and current chief judges, four Audi cars for justices of the Court of Appeal and Toyota Corona cars for justices of the High Court and chairmen of the Regional Tribunals.
This, he maintained, would be used by the Judges for 5 years after which the cars would be sold to the assignees subject to government’s ability to replace them.
Continuing, Akufo-Addo said, 14 justices of the High Court and two chairmen of the Regional Tribunals promoted in January last year, have still not been provided with cars.
Nana Akufo-Addo noted that the judges and chairmen of the lower courts of the Judicial Service, comprising the Circuit Court judges, Circuit Tribunal chairmen and Community Tribunal chairmen are excluded from the provision of official cars as they provide their own means of transport.
As the Minister for Youth and Sports, Hon. Edward Osei-Kwaku, took his turn on the floor of the House, he maintained that, the promotion and development of sports at regional and district levels in respect to the provision and maintenance of District Sports offices and playing-fields and stadia depend a lot on the district assemblies and the Regional Co-ordinating Councils, emphasising that the National Sport Council is a decentralised agency which does not deal with such duties.
He said the Ministry of Youth and Sports is that of a policy formulation, supervision, monitoring and evaluation, facilitation and co-ordination agency of sporting and youth activities in the country.
According to Hon Osei-Kwaku, his outfit is working closely with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to enact a law for district assemblies to set aside a percentage of their Common Fund for the development of sports.
In respect to the construction of tartan tracks for the Accra and Kumasi stadiums, the Minister said since the tartan tract have not been re-surfaced for the past 23 years, they do not need only re-surfacing, but a total re-construction.
He said the International Amateur Athletics Association has pledged to assist Ghana financially to re-construct the tracks in one of the stadiums.
In response to what the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment is doing to recover sums of monies paid to employee who were not entitled to the salaries as reported in the Auditor-Generals report on MDA’s for 1999, Hon. Cecilia Bannerman, said her outfit has been able to recover a total amount of over ?3.3million out of the grand total of over ?5.5 million paid to workers as a result of delaysin the removal of names of the employees from the payroll when they were granted various leaves of absence.
According to her, measures are being put in place to retrieve the rest of the monies very soon.
