President John Mahama
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
He may be right, on the surface of things, that the Transitional Act of Parliament cannot supersede the dictates or powers of the Constitution. But this is insofar as the sacred principles of the Constitution are concerned.
In practice, the Transitional Act of Parliament is a Constitutional Amendment passed by our august House of Representatives to make up for any practical or perceived inadequacies of our 1992 Republican Constitution after the fact.
If, indeed, the Transitional Act of Parliament was passed in order to make the Constitution responsive to the practical exigencies of the moment, then, of course, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, the outgoing Labor and Employment Minister, is wrong to cavalierly suggest that the Transitional Act of Parliament is a veritable white elephant that has absolutely no relevance in practical reality (See “An Act of Parliament Cannot Torpedo [the] Constitution – Haruna Iddrisu” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/19/16).
Secondly, if the Transitional Act of Parliament was enacted to restrain the tendency of reckless spending on the part of the members of a government that just lost its electoral mandate to deliberately muddy the proverbial economic waters for an incoming government with whom the departing administration has absolutely no love lost, then, of course, the rash of contractual agreements being currently indulged in by the Mahama cabinet appointees, in a Machiavellian bid to punitively making the central governance machinery decidedly inoperable by the incoming Akufo-Addo Administration, then such act may be clearly envisaged to be of criminal intent.
What I am suggesting here is that President-Elect Akufo-Addo, once he takes the oath of office come January 7, 2017, can promptly call for a comprehensive review of all the rash of contracts executed by the members of the Mahama cabinet, with a logical view to exacting punitive measures against cabinet appointees whose contractual deeds and/or acts may be forensically proven to have been intended to hurt the cause of the newly installed government and, by the extension, the Ghanaian people, rather than advance the cause of their well-being.
It will be akin to the law of causing financial loss to the state or economic vandalism, a legal instrument that was originally conceived and implemented by the Rawlings-led government of the National Democratic Congress. It is almost certain that President Akufo-Addo would promptly order a thorough review of these clearly “vandalistic” rash of contractual mischief and ensure that those found to have been depraved in intent are vigorously prosecuted. Some heads are bound to roll; no two ways about that.
And when that happens, it is all too predictable that the Mahama Posse would cry foul, especially the members of the kleptocratic Trokosi Nationalist Gang. But, in reality, what we have here is exactly what President-Elect Akufo-Addo campaigned on, to wit, the drastic reduction in the reckless wastage of the hard-earned monetary and capital resources of the Ghanaian taxpayer.
And for the fallout of the foregoing felonious crime, President John Dramani Mahama may have to be squarely held accountable. And the chances of the operatives of the National Democratic Congress finding their way back to the Jubilee-Flagstaff House just got even more complicated.
But what is even more pathetic is the willful failure or flat refusal of legally trained NDC operatives like Mr. Haruna Iddrisu to fully appreciate the unmistakable import of a Constitutional Amendment.
You see, so hell-bent are these “missionary” nation-wreckers on handicapping the incoming Akufo-Addo Administration that abjectly self-centered and pathologically cynical cabinet appointees have become all too willing to vacate both the faculties of their common sense and moral decency, and the culturally constructive knowledge that they are supposed to have acquired through their legal training. Some heads are bound to roll; that’s for sure.
And this is not because President Akufo-Addo lacks the knack for a progressive and conciliatory approach to leadership. Rather, it is just that his main political opponents would have it no other way.