Immediate past Finance Minister Seth Terkper is urging a review of the Presidential Transition Act (845) to consider issues of the economy.
He says the current Act predominantly focuses on the political aspect of the transition process and less on the economy.
Reflecting on his term in office, Mr. Terkper told journalists in Accra Monday that to curb the anxiety about the economy after a change in government, either the Transition Act or the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act (921) ought to be amended.
Ghana has witnessed three successful transfer of power from one government to the other which has so far been between the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The first was in 2000 when former President Jerry John Rawlings handed-over the rein of government to NPP’s John Agyekum Kufuor.
In 2009 Mr Kufuor also handed-over to the late President John Evans Atta Mills, who died in 2012 before the general elections.
Former President John Mahama succeeded the late president after he was elevated to the position and subsequently won the 2012 election.
In that case, there was not much brouhaha about the transition as it was an internal one because the NDC succeeded itself.
On January 7, 2017 there was another transfer from the NDC to the NPP’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
But Mr Terkper who has played varying roles in the three transitions said they are marked by “too many hiccups in the economy.”
He says the three transitions are greeted with anxiety from both public and private institutions in the country.
“Anxiety about whether my contractor will be honored by contractors and anxiety of public servants not being sure about what they have to do during the transition,” he noted.
He says often the argument about post-election expenditures has nothing to do with expenditures before or after elections.
“I realized some of it is the rush by contractors, suppliers and everybody who want to be paid,” he said.
He argued a party that is succeeding itself, as witnessed after the 2012 elections, would find nothing wrong with it, but not when there is a transfer from one party to another.
He entreated the current government to consider reviewing the Transition Act or the PFM Act to stall future challenges.
