President Akufo-Addo in a handshake with Godfred Yeboah Dame
The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has pledged that the next New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration will ensure that every regional office of the Ministry of Justice will own its permanent office building.
This pledge follows the completion of the 12-storey new Head Office of the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice, described as the Law House.
This, he said, is geared towards achieving the vision of a modern public legal service that can adequately support the legal needs of the state.
He also emphasised the need to enhance the capacity of the Office of the Attorney General (AG) to place it in the position to rise to the demands of the complexity of modern legal needs of the state.
Mr. Dame was speaking at a maiden Public Sector Lawyers Conference at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra yesterday.
The three-day conference will set out to strengthen collaboration among lawyers representing the Government of Ghana and to keep them abreast on matters that foster the mechanism of the government towards ensuring effective legal coordination in the public sector.
The conference brings under one roof, lawyers from all the ministries and agencies in the public sector of Ghana.
Mr. Dame expressed hope that the conference will come up with solutions to reduce the number of disputes arising from relations between state institutions and third parties and among themselves, whilst alleviating the significant financial burden on the government and state-owned enterprises.
Workforce
Mr. Dame revealed that the Office of the Attorney General would in the coming days complete the recruitment process for 70 new attorneys, bringing the number of state attorneys appointed in the last eight years to about 190 — about half of the number of state attorneys currently on the roll.
“We need about 1,500 state attorneys for a proper discharge of the functions of the Attorney General under Article 88 of the Constitution. I envisage that every ministry, department, agency or district assembly ought to be serviced by at least one state attorney,” he indicated.
$9 Billion Saved
Mr. Dame revealed that the government narrowly escaped an economic meltdown by successfully defending against international arbitration claims amounting to about $9 billion in the last four years.
Domestically, he said there have been claims in excess of over GH¢10 trillion successfully defended by the Office of the Attorney General against the state.
He said whilst arbitration is touted to assure neutrality, privacy and efficiency in the adjudication of disputes, arbitral claims filed against the government, if not diligently managed, have the tendency to collapse the entire Ghanaian economy.
“A single arbitral claim, if successful, can bring the economy of a developing country like Ghana, to its knees,” he stressed.
Mr. Dame further stated that the constant evolution of the public service and the expansion in the Ghanaian economy enjoin a regular examination by lawyers operating in the public sector of emerging trends and matters that can potentially affect the interests of ministries, departments and state-owned enterprises they work in.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak