Prof. Akosua Darkwah
The Citizens’ Platform on Constitutional Reform (CPCR) has called on the government to commit to a clear implementation roadmap to help protect the proposed constitutional reforms, ensure transparency and prevent the process from being abandoned as a result of changes in political regimes.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra, Chairperson of the Citizens’ Platform on Constitutional Reform (CPCR) steering committee, Prof. Akosua Keseboa Darkwah, said the implementation process should be backed by law to prevent it from becoming merely a statement of good intentions.
She said, “Based on past experiences, we believe that the implementation process should not remain a statement of good intentions or a process that can be changed at any time. This is why we are asking that the process should have the force of law.”
According to the CPCR, the country’s previous experiences with constitutional reform demonstrated the need for a legally protected roadmap noting that in 2012, an implementation committee chaired by Professor E. V. O. Dankwa was established to implement recommendations from the earlier Professor Fiadjoe constitutional review exercise.
She also cited the 2019 attempt at local government reforms, where a referendum was announced and preparations began but the process was eventually cancelled after consensus could not be reached between the two main political parties.
“We didn’t follow through with the amendments that the implementation committee drafted. We believe that as a country, we must all learn from those lessons and act differently now to safeguard the process,” Prof. Darkwah added
According to the CPCR, these experiences demonstrate that establishing an implementation committee, preparing bills and announcing a referendum are insufficient without clear rules, firm timelines and broad national agreement adding that ‘even the most promising reform process can lose momentum and eventually come to nothing’.
The proposed implementation roadmap she said should clearly define the sequence in which reforms would be undertaken, the institution responsible for each stage and the time within which each stage must be completed while establishing firm milestones covering public consultation, the preparation of legislation, parliamentary consideration, civic education and, where required, a referendum.
The CPCR noted that more than 50 amendments were being contemplated, alongside more than 14 bills, including new and amendment bills. Given the scale of the programme, it said the reforms could not realistically be completed within the life of a single Parliament and could extend beyond an election and potentially continue under a different government.
She said the committee should not be restricted to simply translating the government’s position paper into amendment bills but should rather have the authority to facilitate genuine consensus-building and recommend changes to the government’s positions where the national interest requires it.
The CPCR called on the government to commit that it would not place more than 20 different amendments before voters as a single package requiring one “Yes” or “No” answer but ensure there are manageable number of clear questions, with amendments grouped only where they genuinely deal with the same subject and unrelated proposals not bundled together for convenience.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah