Ghana has overly powerful presidents<\/b><\/p>\n Constitution built on executive presidency<\/p>\n Ghana celebrates Constitution Day on January 7<\/p>\n Lawyer and former minister, Captain (rtd.) Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey, has averred that the presidents under the Fourth Republican Constitution are too powerful.<\/p>\n He blames that situation on the late Jerry John Rawlings, the first President under the current Republic that started in 1992.<\/p>\n Effah-Dartey told Kumasi-based Kessben FM in an interview on the occasion of Constitution Day (which falls on January 7 yearly), that JJ Rawlings as power-drunk as he was had \u2018forced\u2019 the drafters of the Constitution to vest a lot of power in him.<\/p>\n \u201cRawlings was so much power-drunk that he got his Constituent Assembly to concentrate so much power into the hands of the President, so the President appoints so many people\u2026so many appointments, all in the hands if the President.\u201d <\/p>\n According to him, successive Presidents enjoy the status quo and have no interest in seeking to whittle down that power: \u201cWhen there is a Constitutional suggestion for amendment, up to date, successive Presidents have found it convenient to do the Rawlings style, they are not pushing.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd to get a Constitutional amendment, you need the majority of Parliament \u2026and if you look at the current political divide in Ghana \u2026 getting two-thirds majority to change the law is a big problem,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He echoes the sentiments of Nii Armah Ashietey, a former Greater Accra Regional Minister under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration has called for a relook at presidential powers.<\/p>\n Ashietey whiles speaking to Accra-based TV3 on the occasion of Ghana\u2019s fifth Constitution Day celebration also identified that Presidents were too powerful under the current Constitution. \u201cWe as a country chose the presidential modus for our country and some people chose the Westminster system for themselves. In the presidential system, the President is very powerful, very very powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think that for me, the president is too powerful. Our president, I\u2019m not talking about NPP, NDC, (but) I think we need to look at the powers of the President,\u201d he submitted.<\/p>\n Every January 7 is observed as such replacing the July 1 celebration of Republic Day since 1960 till 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Late JJ Rawlings with President Akufo-Addo during the latter’s investiture in 2017 Ghana has overly powerful presidents Constitution built on executive presidency Ghana celebrates Constitution Day on January 7 Lawyer and former minister, Captain (rtd.) Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey, has averred that the presidents under the Fourth Republican Constitution are too powerful. He blames that situation on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":741334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Late](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/22112714.295.jpg\" "\\"Late")
Late JJ Rawlings with President Akufo-Addo during the latter’s investiture in 2017<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n