This is how we repair Ghana

By Jermaine Nkrumah

It begins with a president willing to relinquish some of his powers in order to reconstruct Ghana’s political system so fundamentally that no one person would ever wield so much power as to abuse it to the detriment of the whole nation.

If the next president builds not one inch of road, builds not one brick of a school or hospital, creates not one single job, or does none of the things on which Ghanaians are wont to evaluate a president, but presides over a fundamental system transformation that spreads power fairly between the three arms of government in a manner that is irreversible and not immune to circumvention, he would have done more for Ghana than any other before him thus far.

There is no one person more intelligent, more honest, more visionary and/or more holistically suited to steer the affairs of any nation. That the framers of our current constitution failed to acknowledge this simple reality, whether intentionally or innocently, represents ineptitude at the most vital level.

This constitution relies on the chance of a leader’s personal benevolence. And it is a woeful aberration that a nation laden with such brilliant minds has allowed such a flawed constitution to last for so long and to cause a resource rich nation like Ghana to wallow in such poverty.

That must change, and change now.

Currently the president appoints every executive position at the local, at the regional, and at the national level along with the entire judiciary, albeit subject to the approval of a legislature that he heavily influences due to his control over the nation’s purse.

He also appoints almost half of the legislative bodies at the local levels. And given that most legislators of the governing party are hoping to catch the president’s eye for possible ministerial appointments, they rubber stamp everything he does because they cannot afford to offend him.

It is noteworthy that while he makes some of these appointments with the approval of Parliament, he needs no such consent to terminate those appointments. Thus to stay appointed, the appointees need only to please the president and not the people.

In addition to the power the president wields with his appointing powers, he also controls the nation’s purse although Parliament has been arrogated that control. But strangely the Finance Minister, who is under executive control, faces little or no punitive actions if and when he simply fails to authorize the payment of salaries for members of the legislature and the judiciary.

We have even seen a president significantly overspend his executive budget without the courtesy of consulting Parliament because he has access to the purse. Simple logic states that without such access the president cannot, and would not overspend his budget.

In spite of this enormous power, a benevolent and judicious president can still make this work. But nation building cannot be left to chance. The president’s appointing powers must be limited to his or her cabinet and certain key agency heads such as the Auditor General and Public Prosecutor with Council of State (COS) consent.

Inspector General of Police, members of the Judiciary, Chair of the Electoral Commission, Governor of Bank of Ghana, etc should then be appointed by an elected COS.

The appointed Council of State has outlived its usefulness. It has become a toothless rubberstamp of the president evidenced by its current shameful act of recommending pardon for the Montie 3. That institution must be populated by a group of 20 popularly elected men and women from the regions – two per region with each one running region-wide campaigns. A potential tie vote on the revamped Council of State shall be broken by the sitting vice president.

Of course this arrangement would give unfair power to the smaller regions, and that lopsided power would be corrected by drastically reducing the number of seats in Parliament with most of the reductions coming from the smaller regions.

According to the 2010 population census, the average MP currently represents 88,805 residents and it ranges from a high of 114,993 residents for Greater Accra MPs to a low of 61,615 for Upper West MPs.

We can increase the national average representation to, say 130,000 residents per MP, which would eliminate 88 seats from Parliament and bring the number of seats to 187. This means the least populated region (Upper West with a population of 677,763) would have five Parliamentary seats whereas the most populated (Ashanti with a population of 4,725,046) would have 36.

But at least parliamentary representation would be fair and equitable. Furthermore, knowing that regions lose Parliamentary seats if residents migrate away would force their leaders to do more to keep those residents and subsequently retain or possibly increase their seats in Parliament.

Ghana’s population is in a rapid growth mode and structural changes must be made to our system of government to send power closer to the people. At the local level, executive officials as well as legislative personnel must all be elected by popular vote. This include Mayors of large cities and Municipal as well as District Chief Executives.

The president of Ghana has no business appointing a person to sit on a district assembly in Brong Ahafo; residents of that district have a better knowledge of the people who should make local ordinances for them.

These simple changes would ensure that an entire nation does not look to please one individual. The single most overused argument against these reforms is the fact that Ghana employs a unitary system of government. But who tied us to that system? Any system that arrogates political power to the people in a real way is better than our current system that makes god out of our presidents.

Some may also say that our electoral commission is not equipped to handle multiple elections, and that having to run elections every four years is itself a problem for it. We address this fear by resourcing the commission, empowering it by populating it with qualified and credible people instead of cronies, and holding its leadership strictly accountable. The position of the EC Chair should not be insulated from termination as it currently is.

To be taken seriously, Ghana must itself be serious. Instead of having presidents cutting ribbons to commission toilets, we should expect our presidents to be cultivating impactful visions and crafting strategies to achieve them. It would not diminish the president’s stature.

Rather these changes would elevate the presidency to heights not seen before in our history because they would be forced to engage in meaningful activities. That is what Ghana needs to be competitive in the global arena.

Would these proposals fix all our problems? No. but it is a beginning. As said earlier, no one person has all the answers. Thus this article, while not purporting to be full proof, merely seeks to re-introduce ideas that many have suggested in the past so that meaningful and serious deliberations can begin with the view of making lasting changes. There is more than can be added; there is some that can be subtracted. But one thing is certain – we cannot continue on our current path.