Panelists on Joy News' Newsfile, Saturday September 4, expressed various opinions on what should be changed in the 1992 Constitution as the call for review of the ultimate law of the land intensifies.

According to the Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, Dr. Kojo Asante, a new constitution would not guarantee an accountable and transparent government.

He says it takes the integrity of the elected people to ensure that the right thing is done.

He explained that “laws are not enough. So you can have a whole process to change the constitution but the individual that is going to enforce those rules has to come with a set of values and somebody needs to monitor that person.”

“If the person doesn’t have those values, hold them accountable, so that there is the expectation within the system that yes you have to go with integrity but even if you don’t have integrity, the system will hold you to check.  We don’t have that,” he said.

Giving an example to demonstrate the inability of the constitution alone to hold officeholders to account, he said, “the biggest example is the Auditor General’s report.

“Then you ask yourself, the Public Financial Management law is one of the most stringent laws that we have, nobody, you don’t hear anybody even get suspended for breaching rules,  cash irregularities, whatever so that it sends a signal that somebody else can’t do it.

“When Domelevo was doing the surcharging you could see the difference. So for me, those are the steps that it is still within government remit and power.”

Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on the other hand, opined that a new constitution is long overdue.

He said that the Constitution Review Commission had done a yeoman’s job reviewing the 1992 Constitution and producing 960 pages of a report full of actionable recommendations.

“They did such a phenomenal job. Excellent job. I haven’t heard anybody criticise it. There’s a Constitution Implementation Committee report available, all we have to do is to move to the next step.”

He, however, agreed with Dr. Asante concerning the need for people with high integrity to occupy public offices.

Mr. Ablakwa said it is about time those agitating for reforms and accountability take the reins of state affairs instead of agitating whilst dishonest people enter government.

“It’s clear to me that we really have constitutional bottlenecks that allow for persons who have low integrity deficit to exploit and I agree also with Dr. Asante that we need to take a second look at who we’re electing, who we’re giving our public resources to.

“All those agitating out there, I’ll encourage a lot of them to also take interest in coming into the space. Don’t stay outside and allow those with low integrity threshold to come. They would exploit the constitution,” he said.

The Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency of Ghana, Dr. Oduro Osae, described the 1992 Constitution as a stability constitution, not one interested in development.

He expressed the view that if indeed the country is interested in progressing, then it is about time a new constitution is established.

Dr. Oduro Osae said, “because when you look at the CRC report, I mean a report that recommends the amendment of more than 50% of the current constitution, technically requires that we have to draft a new constitution. But the challenge is where do we go from here?

“Because this current constitution is really not a development constitution. It’s a stability constitution that was supposed to help us transit from a previously military regime to a stabilized constitutional one. So if we want to develop, we need a new one.”

However, the Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party, Yaw Buaben Asamoa said the 1992 Constitution does not need a total overhaul.

According to him, specific aspects of the Constitution indeed need reforms, but not the entire constitution.

He said, “I think there are four areas we must deal with. One is the local governance situation where I say that the development of the democracy is incomplete at local level. So we must elect these DCEs and MCEs on partisan basis. Article 55 243 must go.

“I think we must deal with Article 71. Every four years it tears this country apart, literally and we must do something about it. I think we must do something about [Article] 72 which ties the Executive’s hands into Parliament.

“In this hybrid system which is supposed to check itself, it’s a bit tough on the players that you play in two rooms. In one room you’re expected to deliver, in the other room you’re to oversee yourself delivering. It’s a bit problematic. I think we need to look at how we’ll get the best out of that,” he said.