The political regional representation dilemma - Prof Kofi Abotsi provides clarity

Prof. Ernest Kofi Abotsi, the Dean of the School of Law at the University for Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), has provided clarity on the constitutional requirement for presidents to exhibit regional balance in their appointments.

He explained that while the constitution has a provision like that, it is not cast in stone that of a necessity, there should be representation from across all regions of the country.

He added that while this constitutional provision usually places presidents in very sticky positions, it should not be used to pin them into always focusing on just selections to cover all regions, but on competences.

“I think the president has done a good job nominating people who reflect the demographics of our country and so that is important and worthy of note. And I think there is also an attempt to reflect the regional balance even though I have to say that presidents often face this difficulty and my interpretation of the constitutional requirement of regional balance is one that charges presidents to as much as possible reflect that.

“Therefore, presidents and our leaders, trying to meet that requirement – anyway, it’s a … dynamic of things rather than the legal because the legal requirement is not hard and fast. If you find people who are competent, so be it, you have to find people to as much as possible reflect the regional distribution of things but there is no requirement that you have to, of necessity, appoint from a certain part of the country, even if some other people are better qualified and they are not from that part of the country.

“Nonetheless, these are political realities and it’s imperative that different constituencies feel represented in the government and I think there was an attempt to achieve that and this appears to have been substantially met as far as I am concerned and that is a feature in the cup of the president,” he explained.

Prof. Ernest Kofi Abotsi made this known while discussion the issue of the recent nomination of persons for deputy ministerial roles by the president, on the Saturday, April 24, 2021, edition of NewsFile on the JoyNews channel and monitored by GhanaWeb.