Row over 1992 Constitution: Lawmakers wade in on conversation - AM Talk on Joy News (26-8-21)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGnZ8d_KibU"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][Music] all right well good morning once again and it's time for am talk on the am show and the conversation is going to be about the 1992 constitution we started the conversation well one of the things we're going to be talking about is the 1992 constitution we started the conversation yesterday when we had uh experts joining us to talk about it now we're going to bring in the legislators so we have two mps joining us and we're going to be having hearing from them what they make of course for a new constitution they're those who are saying that we should do away with the constitution altogether and have a new one and there are others who believe that no we should probably look at changing a few things and continue with the review our amendments to the constitution rather than a wholesale and we've got so we're going to be speaking with the two mps you have alas and sugini who's the mp for tamale north he's a member of lands and forestry and appointment committees and then we also have in studio dr steven amwa he's mp for insha'allah is member of the finance and privileges committees so thank you very much for making time to join us to you uh alas and suyni and to you the doctor so welcome to the am show good morning to you alas and ginny hello if you could just on mute so we can hear you good morning to you yes i'm sorry about that good morning israel good morning to um dog too all right and uh are you going to go to bongo yesterday i saw your post about bongo water i've been i've been expecting my my very good friends from bongo to come to my because uh my appetite for the water is unquenchable all right so for those of you who are not getting the bongo joke would would mention that in a bit but uh thank you very much doctor good morning to you are you aware of the bongo joke no okay so dc was saying that um there's um there's a high number of uh teenage pregnancy in in his district and he attributes it to the water that they're drinking oh yeah he says um it boosts potency well alas and sweeney will probably be in a better position tell us about that story so you're more familiar with the story [Laughter] well israel i i thought that europe you you guys reported on it and uh you will have more of the jews that i do the proof is that yes i think you have captured it well the dce claims that the high incidence of teenage pregnancies in their district is as a result of the water that they drink because it has some high sexual potency as to how he came about that uh he claims that a nest told him and uh he doesn't doubt it yeah because perhaps he he he's he has some experience too perhaps that is why a lot of people cry so dog is in the city they experience us in oh well he lives there he's a district chief executive and a nursing officer tells him something right yeah he says that he yeah so maybe he's privy to a piece of information we are not privy to well well i say alison sweeney is saying he lives there so if he comes out to tell him they say if a crocodile comes out of the water to tell you that the water is um is a new viagra who are we to is it a lake or russian river i think the maybe the ball holes okay but generally he's making the river then wherever he flows to all the teenagers normally they flew and joined their sin so then who's going to be it means okay i'm not sure it's a it's uh i think it's it's more of the he didn't say okay but we're making reference to the water from there and all of a sudden bongo water is being talked about as a new viagra uh is it is it background or the fertility it could be that it's not necessary but it contains something when you drink it boots your system to get pregnant easily it's possible anyway we probably may have to investigate and have the fda go there and um check the water and see if they'll pass it would have been the greatest tourist site today well well well israel yeah just maybe for for information uh what i have found out is that um the the water table in bongo is is very uh so they tend to have a lot of drought uh many of them depend on boreholes and unfortunately um the water that they even find when they drill these boreholes tend to have a lot of um chloride in it and um it is something that has been known to affect the development of bones especially the teeth and so many people from that area tend to have some problems with their teeth discolorate discolored heat and all of that that is the problem i have known to be associated with people from that area as a result of the water that they drink uh as to whether that uh you know also contributes to their libido uh i'm sure like you said this may have changing too story he's changing the story he's not changing the story what you're saying no good morning my brother if what you guys are saying there is nothing between yes water and fertility not necessarily we do no it wasn't just fertility he didn't just talk about fertility but the pregnancy is a result of high level but fertility oh oh let's we probably you see all of this would have been settled if we had manasi azuria winnie investigative journalist go to the area and investigate and you know so you come and tell us the story so we don't have to be going this engaging this back and forth manasseh manasseh if you're watching please go to bongo do us a favor yes yeah that's where actually manasseh comes from so if we're looking for someone to corroborate the story who better than them all right but let's get let's get into our conversation so this one this is just a side issue and uh on the on the front page of the daily dispatch there's also the story uh doc you're featured here on the front page uh steven are taking his inches of seats to another level what what is it that you're doing in shai so that uh it's taking the seat to another level thank you very much for this opportunity um my greetings to our viewers this morning and your constituents and my consciousness of course they are they just by the grace of god through them i'm here so they know i regard them greatly um what i've tried to do is to create permanent interface for interaction between the people and the government to all right my outfit so i've set up a small a very nice office um that is going to be operated between mondays eight to five to friday eight to five okay so all concerns all questions everything that somebody doesn't understand you have to come in so like when i go back on weekends i can go through them and see days i can respond to or extend to the government and also i've set up development committees central committee education committee technical acquisition committee security committee environment committee youth development committee and we have professors and doctors being members and chairpers we want to use this open culture system bring everybody on board and although i describe a sense of community to help us develop our communities all right also bring in the corporate entities to also actually their competition responsibilities are not passed because if you want to wait on only government it will be difficult our schools are getting the flavor environment and then insecurity in the area so this is what i've tried to do all right thank you very much so let's get into the conversation and i want to start with uh alas and uh so we they've been there's been talk for a change in the constitution there are those who are saying that no let's not change the constitution and that we should probably could do with some amendments i want to start with you what do you make of the calls for a change are you for the change or for a review or we should just keep it as it is well i think that um our constitution has served its spare parts um it was uh written uh during a certain period that we were um about embarking on this democratic experiment after uh so many uh interruptions in our uh governance system by the military um i call it um the period that the the decade that ended the period of decay um if you recall uh president rollins when he came with um the coup um from the 80s managed to make it perhaps the last coup and we hope it will be forever and assad in the 1992 constitution now the constitution if you studied well was also guided by the experiences of previous democratic governments for example when you have a situation where majority of members of parliament are appointed ministers is as a result of the experience that we had during the demand regime where the government could not have its budget passed so they thought that the fusion can help bring that harmony between the legislator and then the executive so a number of uh things that happened in past democratic regimes informed some of the decisions that were uh you know carved into the constitution again we had um a number of crews as i indicated and jerry rollins was transitioning uh as a as a cool maker into a democratic leader and so there was um still that fear of uh military interruptions and i mean the possible of military interruptions and so it also informed those who were writing their constitution to factor in the period i mean the happiness at around the time but by the grace of god i think that uh over a period 20 years plus we have come a long way and some of the things some of the factors that were considered uh for which certain universe decisions were taken as part of the constitution have long outlived their usefulness and we have we have we have i think we have come a full circle and it is time for us to begin to look at some of those things they have outlived their usefulness but they are still in their constitution again some of them have been overtaken by time and yet they still remain in the constitution and that is why um i think that this discussion is long overdue you recall under the presidency of um president professor mills the constitutional review commission was was was was put in place we spent a lot of money uh it was made up of very distinguished you know personalities i recall um doctor raymond took about now prof sari mona tugba was the secretary of that commission i think and they went round the country they interacted with various groups and uh people and came up with a very very beautiful document in that document most of the things that have you know resulted in this present discussion were captured and i recall under president muhammad also a white paper was issued on the work of the you know presidential the constitutional review commission a white paper was issued on the constitutional review commission and i mean we have not actually moved forward from that white paper i think it is time for us to move from that white paper and look at those provisions that the review commission you know uh came up with those areas that we in their view per the interactions that they had with people had to be re-looked at and changed and i believe that if we go back to that report to move the discussion forward from the government white paper at the time we will be addressing many of the concerns that are currently raised so i am for uh a review i think the nation has been for a review for some time now and that is why the the commission was put up uh and and and so it's just a matter of of picking of us picking up the pieces uh from where we left off from the white paper i think that uh the discussion can flow from there and we will we will we will we if there's a need to fine-tune anything we we will all uh contribute to fine-tuning that all right so i'll put the same question to you dr amwa where do you stand review scrap or let's keep that maintain the status quo um thank you very much uh i'm not um a legal practitioner so oh no in this conversation that's interesting this conversation is not about league of legends i just wanted to draw the prayer like the basis on which i'm going to speak right because maybe we have other listeners who are probably in those specific areas and sometimes when you speak they think that's what i'm just drawing attention because when i'm speaking as an ordinary man when the constraints assembly was put together for the drafting of 1992 constitution it it drew people from of course all walks of life of course um so maybe i would speak as grassroots person as defined by ghanaians okay which also fit into what you're saying i think in my opinion there are growing and changing needs of the people and for that matter we need to first do very comprehensive review of the whole constitution all right and see which extracts are important to stay as they are and those we need to amend or even scrap we as a people must understand the fact that even sometimes a constitutional extract just simply because of the size of the population today might not allow for us to still use just the changing needs in terms of our infrastructure our development and even the entrenchment and integration of global processes and other requirements because we are day in and day out getting more entrenched more integrated into global issues and sometimes there are conflating issues that we need to amend our constitution to be on board um there's this even this thing about our laws that when i was you of maslock i had a very strong argument with uh one of my bosses is it then dr akuto former deputy finance minister on this issue of what a pfm act says about some of these are laws and i think even in our constitution we have issues relating to those areas and i think there was a clash of two legal instruments that even when a budget is approved for specific expenditure outlay and is not released you cannot even spend if you have money okay and that it was quite broad to the standard it includes even emoluments salaries but you also know that if people work for you for some time now paying them it's also illegal so sometimes under all government you realize that for six months release for emoluments or salaries it's not done you have igf people are not being paid that means if you have to go strictly by the pfm act or even by the law you won't pay them for six months and that is also that is also against the law yeah so there was a clash of two legal instruments and he raised a lot of argument i mean when i said i'm an illegal practitioner what i'm trying to say is that there are so many great areas in our constitution today and sometimes it creates controversies argument it makes people act something not necessarily in bad faith or in any dubious attempt to probably misappropriate state funds or put up any anti-social behavior or actions and inactions dysfunctional or inimical to the performance of our republic however the law can catch up with the person and the person can be jailed i hope you understand so i think it is time that's my brother from the minority side unabused he said i think it is time we've gone through the full cycle as to whether we should throw away everything and do a new one i think we need to do very constructive analysis of the issue and have the best alternative taken we should consider whether scrappings now you describe the whole thing and still repeat some of them so where's the point sometimes scrapping the whole thing will mean that we need to spend more and now we have issues with money as a country sometimes even trying to do careful review and take extras will rather cost us more so i think we need to sit down and bring on board all stakeholders and decide before we take the action to either amend or change the entire constitution i think it's extremely important but then the alaska sunni also makes the point that a lot of work has been done already it started with the late president mills and so why don't we go to that and take whatever they have done yeah i think that that would be all part of if that is what he's saying is true and which i think is true i don't think life is anything for anything um they have to it has to be considered in the process and see that probably even the work done at that time still we have to change something because we've had a few years all they are the best to fetch probably even the work that we might not need to we may not need to even do in action only just are meant and he said those things we need so i'm saying that it has to be done one holistically to we have to bring relevant stakeholders on board relevant sometimes my problem in our country is that there are people who do not have the requisite expertise in some of these exercises but they find their ways into the committees and the bodies managing and that's why we have problems we shouldn't think of whether somebody is you know position or in government or somebody's a or b we need to analyze carefully the social stratification and see which segment fit into this exercise so that we can have something which will benefit the state and mind all of us nobody is going to be in power in perpetuity so we need to get a document that will serve the needs of ghanians not at specific time for for certain defined group no i think we need about amending the constitution or changing it to me is of importance we need to find a very critical okay so one of the things we've heard from the conversations that has that have taken place so far is the conversation that yes we had a constitution or we put together a constitution that was to give us political stability which was because we're transitioning from a military regime or a military era to a democratic era so we needed political stability almost 30 years after that we probably have obtained the political stability and now we should be having um a constitution that will bring development now the president has been speaking so this one has embroidered development okay so not that he hasn't brought development but it should be more development or really i agree probably make changes that will make sure that modern day development can be actually attained in a way we want it but if they say that we need a consumer that would rather bring development because the other one was just transitional stuff it was nothing quality it cannot be working like that but let me let me bring in sienna do you do you agree that yes in fact from the conversation what you've said so far you actually appreciate that we created or we had a constitution that was taking care of a setting era now people there are some who are saying that let's now be focused or have a constitution that's looking more at development okay it turns out we have lost lassen suing but i'll be putting that question to you but let's hear let's go to uh let's get to hear what the president has had to say the president is talking about talks about the uh calls for a new constitution and he doesn't quite think that we should uh be that he feels that we should be cautious when it comes to talk about reviewing the constitution because he believes that this constitution has served as well let's get together president and then we'll come back to the conversation there are people around this table mr dr is one of them who know about my attitude to the effort that the one of my predecessors the late professor mills made to revise the constitution and never agreed with the methods by which the whole undertaking was taken i don't believe that the constitution is the work of the president of the republic having regarded the difficulties that our country has had to arrive at a multi-party constitutional dispensation that has endured and the fourth republic is the one that has endured we saw the first republic which had its own problems authoritarian rule one party rule we had the problems with the second republic we had the problems involved in the third republic all of which were short-lived to have a republic that has lasted nearly 30 years in the context of our history to change the constitutional arrangements that have assisted this durability we should be very careful how we go about it i feel very strongly on that point and that is why i have not lent my support to the idea of this wholesale review of the constitution the one area which i felt required action was the one that i put before the country which was the extension of multi-party democratic rule to local governments all right so that's a president kuffard we spoke about a week or so ago and that's his position he feels that for for him when it comes to the you know election of mmdc's that's what he feels strongly about and that's what he puts he tried to do but that didn't quite work out so that's the the president's position but yes coming back i think if you heard him farewell yeah he's not against uh making changes in the constitution he's rather not for who's he that's changing the entire thing that's what he's he said right now and he even with prophet sanders he if i heard him right he was rather having concerns about the methods or the process so it looks like the presidents appreciate the fact that yes there could be extract from the constitution that we can look at review and make amends but talking about wholesale uh i'm changing or whatever of the constitution he thinks he feels strongly he doesn't really learn his support and i also support him because uh why do we change the status quo that has worked amnesty has worked entirely but for about 30 years now this constitution has been on the aggregate very successful however time growing needs changing needs transforming society global issues other global agencies and stakeholder groups and individuals behavioral patterns of the people society and other things all these matrix of factors call for the need to review our constitutions and see that okay this aspect we can amend this aspect such as he just cited that one i think is perfect and that's what i stand for but if you say we should change everything entirely trust me the new one that we do a lot of them will contain the same old one some of them you cannot change them so i think that is what the president means okay that we should rather consider extract rather than wholesale and he also said something that legally i don't understand i don't know that he said that the the the task doesn't lie solely with the uh presidents of the republic or something i don't know if i heard him right he said something like that it's an issue and i don't know the legal interpretation it's an issue that actually um lawyer bobby benson who joined us for the conversation yesterday pointed out to me that it has been determined by the supreme court that there was no problem with the way the president went about it because that is professional professor mills okay about it because eventually it's going to come to parliament and then parliament would arrange for the referendum to happen and then we would either take adopts there but what was the convention what was the process i'm i'm not sure what the convention has been but eventually it all it always ends up in a referendum but we have a alaskan cine back on joining us back soon so mr sweeney so you've heard what the president has said but i also wanted you to speak to the issue of whether we should be looking for a constitution that's more development oriented well um i i don't understand what you mean by a concession that is more difficult because let me let me clarify so the conversation is we've had a constitution that or we've we framed a constitution after the constitution that was to take care of a certain context and that we wanted political stability at the time so and you made you alluded to that that we the fact that we're moving from a military regime to a democratic democratic dispensation so we have to put some things in place to ensure that that democratic experiment succeeds now that democratic experiment you can say having had this going on for nearly 30 years has succeeded which like you say we appear to have had the last school behind us so should we be looking at something that then looks at how more development oriented that's a point i was making yes um i get that but um i agree with you and that is why when i started i talked about uh the fact that the constitution was written for a certain period uh taking into consideration the uh threats of that period and perhaps that is why we had um focus on a constitution i agree with you that will uh guarantee stability uh so you had entrenched crosses in there you also had um a concentration of almost all the power in in the executive president and that is how come even today parliament simply does government business it is just recently that we have tried to introduce private members bill until now largely every business that was done in parliament was government business and that is why we still have um the leader of government business as minister in parliament so that the executive always gets its business done on the floor but it is it was not entirely focused on guests ensuring the stability uh if you for example look at our um uh this uh principles of states um which is also under the constitution uh it has touched on almost everything that is a developmental deficit in this country for example in the area of human rights it tells you what the nation should be uh looking at in the area of even the economy in the area of morality in the area of public health in the area of uh transportation uh it is all captured under the principles of state policy you know in the 1992 constitution and i look at that you know part of the constitution and it is it is development focus and it is from there that many of our acts of parliament have even stemmed from so you have the rtis you have the um um almost all the legislations that we have had has stemmed from the principles of state policy and and and so i tend to uh think that the constitution the 1992 constitution even in its current form uh its development focus but yes uh if there is a an agreement for us to fine tune it i am sure that uh current trends for example um i.t and others that have come about and driving business and the economy can uh find expression in in in the review uh which will save uh uh the current uh trends and perhaps even future expectations so uh we can uh continue the discussion like i stated earlier picking it from where the past presidents left off and that is where i tend not to entirely agree with the president when he says it does not lie uh with the president i think that we knew in this country that for uh discussions like this uh to be moved from the platforms where they are conducted to action uh you will need some executive push and for example you will need the president to look at the white paper that was issued by his predecessor if there's anything that he also wants to agree with or disagree with make it known for for example the report of the constitutional review commission to parliament for consideration and possibly a discussion around a referendum that is after all the the the t's are crossed and the eyes are dotted i i that is how the discussion can be moved forward it will need that executive push for it to be moved forward i think that like i indicated we all as a nation have agreed over the period that there's a need for us to fine-tune their constitution and that is what led to the formation of the review commission in the first place and mind you it was made up of very very distinguished personalities i mean professor raymond tughba is no mean person when it comes to the law in this country i remember there was dr gambilla on it a former deputy finance minister under president uh kufford's era i think uh the late apiaminka was also on it i mean these were these are people who uh saved and distinguished themselves in the areas that they they served in and they were exposed to some cheese on it as well so it was a carefully uh thought of you know uh commission put together represented almost every shade of opinion in the country and they also did an extensive work you know by going around the country and interacting with various groups and you know uh finally filtering the views that they got uh and this and and and and and and and arriving at at what day they arrived at a number of very useful things uh were suggested for for for consideration i and and and and and that is why i find the current discussion interesting because almost all the areas that people are seeing to be of consent were touched on for example whether chiefs can even play politics whether um parliament is serving the rule that it should save what the limitations are what can be done they considered all of these things and and i think that it would be useful if we if we get that executive push that is necessary for us to pick the pieces from where the former president left up with with the white paper and maybe just by the way i am excited that um we all tend to now have a proper meaning of what a review is i get what you're trying to do now okay he says he get he now he's happy that we we now appreciate what uh when we say a review you know this conversation about shs being free as it has been reviewed and then they will say oh you mean to scrap you need to do away with the free stages maybe i'll let you alaska sweeney explain it [Laughter] yeah i think i think it's yes just listening to the conversation here we all understand that there are maybe three propositions you have those who say discard their constitution that is crap the constitution to anyone you have those who say we should review the constitution and look at the grey areas and make it and make it right and and and and it is based on this discussion that i i am satisfied that there is no longer a debate over whether review means cancellation or uh it it really means what it means okay it makes something is alone we tend to in my opinion try to do propaganda with statements and comments and give you different meanings the issue about even shs and this one they are entirely two different issues schools are daily going through reviews that's what happened no you you continue with yourself but i want to talk so that he doesn't distract oh no he's not distracted yeah i'm not then i'll do that you shouldn't stop me oh no what if i'm distracted you shouldn't stop laughing then i'm gonna okay thank you what i'm saying is that all the schools in ghana even before free stitches we have monies allocated to district heads for monetary and evaluations and these are review exercises so what are they talking about if we want to get serious with this review and shares and change these are all semantics and you know the way the communist inferior tactics do their politics since i mean those days after i think the point is yes i'm not talking about his point alone the issue of review that we're talking about is entirely different from this we don't review our constitution it's not part of us it's not a process it's not a routine now we feel it has gone through the cycle the the growing and changing needs we want to do something to it then we can say okay let's review look at areas we can amend others are saying we should entirely scrap and bring it's entirely different because we can't tell people that oh now there's different between review and no education field is always or must always be reviewed because we have monitoring and evaluation exercises that cause what constant changes is that it's different from this all right don't let us joke with words and people will take over they are the same i don't do it i'm very detailed about some of these social discussions so they're entirely different unless somebody will tell me that education there's nothing like monetary and evaluation and monetary evaluation and adjustment basically it's talking about review you check what is happening and make a mess all right agree that uh something has to be done about the constitution the conversation then is some of the areas that we should be looking at one of the areas that has come up strongly has to do with the structure and how much influence or power is left with the executive there are those who are saying that the constitution the way it tastes now there's so much power in the executive which is the president so much so that we're not having the checks and balances as we're supposed to have in a structure in a typical constitution or democracy where the three arms of government you know can check each other the president is probably way too powerful what do you make of that uh conversation okay and you maybe let me just add to it it also goes to batteries a point that we're making earlier that at the time the constitution was being drafted probably the framers were looking at we're having um a military somebody who has been in power for so long coming from the military era and so we have to find a way of easing him out so that if you you don't you don't put him in a presidency that you strip him off many of the powers so let's still make him feel comfortable enough and so let's give him all the power to appoint as many people i mean the the people and the various org in the various organs as possible so that brings me back to the conversation now is that something that we should look at considering the amount of power i think this issue has given rise to much controversy among key stakeholders and even the citizenry it's really like everybody is saying that oh the president is is it having too much power there seem to be too much power imbalance and because of that probably some of the things presidents do not one president do not normally reflect the interests of the people um i think i share that sentiment right i think i shared a sentiment i think the essence of democracy is to ensure that at least there is meaningful amount of power when it comes to decision making affecting state resources properties and activities people should have their hands on but if the power is said that i alone because if you're one person apart from god you can make a lot of mistakes even i think the followers of christ i'm not the islamic person so i don't know but i'm sure even the there are a lot of mysteries even angels probably out of mistakes some of them were torn down so any time there is power imbalance there is this danger of decision-making processes being integrated or being actually left to be controlled by habitual illness which might not necessarily be deliberate on the part of the president a or b or c so i think it is an area we should look at critically all right we should look at it but i also also think that even absolute democracy in my opinion and the bone of absolute democracy to me is also too hard for a developing economy such as ours because sometimes that those powers that the presidents also have sometimes also help because sometimes because of democracy simple things that could be done to let things go tend to drag it will drag for that yes bureaucracy i hope you know something if you look at even most of the well cherished uh modern day economies of society such as rwanda even singapore south korea you realize that more or less there is a mixture of democracy and autocracy i'm not i'm not calling for military rule absolute autocracy but i also think our mindset and our attitudes and our behaviors and our conventions and our values and cultural stuff and racial behaviors i think sometimes too much of poverty that people also need to delay and destruction of most of our social values which could rather serve as functions of our performance so i think we need to look at that critically it has its good side and has its bad side right and that is why one thing that hini said honorable said i was very happy with the caliber of people that were on board doing professor mills attempt to let us work on the constitution i think we need to also get same thing caliber 20 also including korean people the names that he was mentioning were almost all of them were old people i'm not saying all people are not good they have experience but trust me strategy has about three lenses experience and by technique and also by ideas and i think sometimes more than the young ones a lot of them could apply a lot of evaluative techniques and other things and make sure that what we put in there will also serve the need of today and also going forward so i think they should include the young people who have their ideas and input into some of these and also they're in positioning and some only old men i don't think that is important all right so alastair sweeney the dr amwa believes that yes he agrees that the presidency of the executive seems to have quite a bit of power and that we should find a way of redrawing that that balance where do you stand on that yeah our knowledge is right i mean um you had someone who had absolute power by way of uh seizing it through a military coup and had to be transitioned into a democracy where um the absolute power had to be shaded off and so it needed to be done um you know uh not drastically yeah but you know with some level of attention to the absolute power that the person had so that it didn't impact him greatly and so that consideration i'm sure was what was factored into centralizing uh the power uh the way it is being centralized in our constitution where the president uh basically have a body in the government i mean board members now it is even extended to uh deputy directors you know at institutions i mean i think it is it is it is too much it is something that we need to have a structure uh to to to to take care of and not one man you know being tarzan and and doing all of all of those things but i also agree that um and maybe let me share this with you something my late grandfather always used to say about africa and democracy for him at our level of development he likened our situation to fastening things in using a hammer and a nail if you want to fasten things in a less developed environment treat it like a hammer and a nail you will fasten them but it will need you will need some force and you will need the nail to bind it together uh in the developed uh you know countries he likened it to a screw and a screwdriver maybe it's because he was a military man so that was his interpretation of things but if you actually look into history most of the countries that we compare ourselves to by way of development did not also start being this liberal they also started with certain level of what is known as democratic centralism you know where the power is still concentrated somehow for some decisions uh to be made especially when those decisions do not appear very popular with the masses but the leadership can see how impactful and useful those decisions uh can be that is what is called the democrat democratic centralism so yes even as we uh called for the review that will lead to sharing of some of the powers of the president we need to understand that um we will still need a segment where a hammer and a male sometimes uh are what you know is needed to to to to put things together and not necessarily a screw and a screwdriver where things are normal and laws work and uh people behave uh in in a much better way they have a much better attitude than than we do at our level so let us be careful uh when we say that we are going to shed the power that is concentrated in the executive do i agree that it is too much some of it should be taken away but i also recognize the principle of democratic centralism even in a democracy all right it's great that the conversation is proceeding quite smoothly so far you you both seem to agree on uh most of the things that we were talking about now let me move on to one other plan that has come up which has to do with the treatment of article 71 office holders there are those who are saying that and it's come up in the recent demonstration by public sector workers who were saying they got some four percent a salary increase and yet the article 71 office holders they who are in a much privileged position already got a lot more and so the conversation is about can we look at this article issue of it at school 71 of his holders and look at the monuments for everybody else and in the conversation we had yesterday with the renowned hr practitioner and thought leader dr hazel brad amwa she was saying or she suggested something to the fact we probably could have everybody on a single spine from the president all the way to the end she's not saying that we should give them the same salaries you say you can give the president whatever amount you're going to give the president but then we should look at whatever increase you're going to give if you're going to give one percent increase probably everybody should get one percent increase across the spine i want to start with you i'll assess you what do you make of that one yes sir i agree with you again that we all seem to agree on many of the issues that we have raised except the question of review which my brother started with an advice [Laughter] we changed the interpretations of things and then he went right ahead to do exactly that by changing trying to change the meaning of review based on different contexts but that's just by the way now um i think that the question of article 71 holders uh over the period um we've all contributed to the misunderstanding that a lot of people have of of of what it represents i i don't i don't excuse myself at all because i worked in the media for a very long time and we all contributed to the misunderstanding that i now see exists as far as holders of article 71 uh officers are concerned when it comes to their emotions but i think that we can address or cure that if we for example set up an employment committee or a commission that is responsible for determining employment for everyone uh public sector workers and even article 71 office holders i mean it it is going to and giving the issue of whether spouses of ex-presidents and presidents should be taken care of will be determined by this employment committee or commission so that it does not lie in the hands of the president or parliament to determine what each of them gets i mean it now becomes you know a professional thing that is done based on a certain criteria that is used by the employment committee to determine the compensations that all categories of workers you know are entitled to so if you look at it critically misunderstanding has always come from the fact that um over the period um we have not asked uh people uh try to explain you know the circumstances and and i'll use parliament for example all right look as a member of parliament in the eighth parliament fortunately i was in the seventh parliament so in the eighth parliament i am taking salary of the seventh parliament and in the seventh parliament i was taking salary of the safe parliament because the constitution says that a president should set up a committee that will determine the salaries of parliamentarians that is article 71 office holders including judiciary and others now over the period presidents have turned attend have turned around to set up these committees late in the day so as we speak the committee is not being formed for it for 71 office holders of article 71. so we are basically being treated under their work the conditions of service for the previous parliament or the previous officeholders so at the end of the period when the committee is set up the committee then determines how much we should have been paid from january 7 2021 yeah and then because we're not paid that much you know it is calculated over the period of four years the areas the extra that we should have been paid is calculated over the period and paid to us as esb so it is actually salary areas which over the period have been termed uh end of service benefits but it is actually not end of service benefit for example if i was supposed to be taking thousand five today and i am taking thousand two hundred and i'm not using denominations so you can imagine whatever but if i was paying to pay a thousand we pay thousand five and i'm taking thousand two today and then the committee sets and it sets up maybe in the third or fourth year of the president and determines that i should have been paid a thousand five from from january 7 2021. then they will calculate the 300 ghana cities short by four years and then paid to me as lam sam that is what usually generates the april and that is why i say it is because over the period we have really not taken our time to explain it well and for people to understand so that for example we can say that because of that upload we do not want the areas again let the president do what he is supposed to do as one of the first things he does before he's sworn in i mean when he sworn into office set up the committee determine my conditions of service and let me receive it by monthly so that you don't owe me and pay me areas at the end of four years that becomes a lump sum for me that will create the unnecessary you know agitations in the area of for example car loans parliament again is one institution that in my view has been given a raw deal over the period because almost all article 71 office holders are given state vehicles that are shaffer driven and fueled by the state and serviced by the state so you have the judiciary they are given vehicles they have drivers that the state pays the state provides them with fuel and the state services those vehicles the same is for a council of state members but you see the path for mps i don't think came out of the blue i think it was based on good intentions where they said that the mps must contribute to getting their own cars by way of taking loans from the states that are subsidized now if you compare the number of mps we have which is likely to increase the cost the state will have to bear to provide them with vehicles and provide them with drivers and fuel and servicing and maintenance is so huge you how many judges do we have so the states can take care of that how many council of state members do we have so the state can do that but now we have 275 members of parliament and likely we will increase because we have just finished a population census right so if the state is going to be providing vehicles for these 275 maintaining and providing drivers and paying the drivers and servicing those vehicles you can imagine the cost so the people who thought of the car loan at the time i'm sure we're considering the impact of that on the state and decided that why don't we let the mps have their cars so that they are responsible for finding a driver if they want and paying the driver if they want they maintain the car when it breaks down they service the car however mile whatever mileage they do and does not come to the state but over the period this has also not been explained so well to the people and that is why the last time you know parliament had a discussion on this a lot of us i thought got emotive and instead of making people understand our situation uh threw our hands in the air and contradicted ourselves when we said look we do not want the car loans anymore because we are interested in preserving the the state space and protecting the state press so we don't want the car loans anymore you make you make a good argument when it comes to just the issue of mps but the conversation is not so much about just the mps they're looking at the article 71 office holders all together as a whole and so let's not make it so much about him but yes you can argue about it i agree with you that is why i started by saying that to deal with it we need an employment committee or commission right that will be a standing commission looking at movements across board but i am saying that over the period the issue of article 71 holders have always largely been around emoluments to mps for a very long time some didn't even know that article 71 office holders included the judiciary and even members of the council of states because the discussion has always been sparked by how much mps get by way of car loans or by way of what is mistakenly called esb so that is why i went in that direction to explain that but i understand that the discussion is about article 71 officials and i think the best key to it is for us to have a standing emoluments commission sure just as we have the fair wages commission determining you know a movement of all public sector workers including article 71 office holders all right uh thank you very much so i come to you uh dr amwa so he's made his point he agrees that yes we probably should be looking at an emolument commission that would look at everybody else so that we have something that's a lot fairer what's what's your position on that i think um everything i'm supposed to see he said it he said it but there's something which is missing we're not looking at i think one of the reasons most african countries including ghana just my opinion i could be wrong we either may supply foreign models or even our own policies designed and used or at least are not most of the times best fit of fitting our situations we tend to gloss over prevailing issues analyzing them and understanding them in our context and design models and methods and solutions to make sure that yes this is our situation this is how best our model or solutions must be in which context can you give us an example let me tell you something a lot of the i won't say noise forgive me destructive interference of waves in our society today although they are right for instance lecturers have workers to me within the is it the civil service or the public service to me i respect the most they are the only areas i can say in terms of productivity teachers nurses lecturers they are wonderful monies pay to them to me i'm not enough i agree but behind the scenes when you meet some of them you said oh the mps are giving this why not we are taking 71 and that if we want to find very fair line of emolument outlet i agree but that dimension they go my brother i'm being very practical when you say this somebody said oh why should mp come on tv already and talk about how he or the the mps are spending and i'm like wow what's wrong with that our society is quite different and be honest with you no mp unless maybe i don't know how the other mps behave but if you're mp who really or that wants to help society and community and you know that people when you ask them for something they don't even have they don't feel comfortable they always want to give my brother they can give us hundred thousand a month or even two months yeah they will not it can never ever equate the pressure on you from society and somebody said that oh you decided to be mp no problem i'm sure a time may come if this thing doesn't change the very good people in our society will leave corridors of politics and will not occur for us because we have a society that almost every community people who are very poor they can't get food to eat they can't pay their school fees they are dying in hospitals they will come to your doorstep and even is getting to the point that almost everywhere and it's the doing of mppndc when the ndc are in power we use things we are not supposed to use against them and they will see houston they are not supposed against us so we have defined a pressure to a method for the public so even things that are not within the germination of the mp such as fixing bridges light somebody dying hospital not good they push all onto the mps and trust me if i cut how much probably i need to get a week you will not believe me so people should also be honest enough and understand that our society is said that if somebody comes out as a politician you move out of here at the airport at the feeling stations church places every community at the funerals in your homes not your family members somebody is dying colibu i need to 300 000 cities to top my medical bills so in analyzing these things we shouldn't take this out of context because some of these things are also influencing and enhancing corruption yeah okay sure analyzing all these things then people can make the statements they make if not we'll design a very fair line one wine structure single spot and trust me it will not practically work you said something that i find quite instructive you essentially say it's the doing of the mpp and the ndc the ndc will use something against the mpp and then the mpp eventually also use it again to me it sounds like then the two parties are the problems of this country oh genius are problems no no no no no you see let me tell something anything that you find in dc and people would do yeah it's not because you're nbc and people are politicians it's ghanaians we made them do that if you like right now take on abu shaheen his excellency for my president mohammed president president his excellency in another bank everybody all the active politicians take us away bring new set of kenyans this is where we make mistakes the problems we have in our country is not because the definition and the ethos and the and the works and activities of politics it takes the behavioral pattern of advance sorry ghanaian organians as a whole so these issues must be addressed in the context of our own behaviors not because somebody is in one of these saying that yeah right now if there is there should be competition between among media households you see what they would do oh jfm another media house will try to put you in a situation that does not even fit media practice okay and by doing that constantly after some time the general public would then define what they think should be your performance yeah and this is destroying us okay now i don't know if you understand yeah sure we have we have very little time for our time is up but i would like us to end on the the work of the privileges committee and now i'd come to you uh la sansuyni what what's how far with the issue you're having with the the issue you took the privileges committee as far as canada japan's concern well um i would have loved to take a bite on whether npp and nbc are the problems in this country but you have also raised an equally important matter that i need to speak to um yes uh what happened was that um the committee the privileges committee could not uh find a suitable time uh to meet myself and uh honorable kennedy japong before the house rose and i understand at their last meeting there was an agreement for them not to set during recess because some members didn't want a situation where a meeting will be called at a time many members are in their constituency and unable to attend the meeting and you know the way the house operates if they were not able to attend and the committee formed the quorum um matters could easily be dismissed or you know taken uh in a direction that others may not be comfortable with but because a forum column is formed it will become difficult to challenge it so the members at their last meeting agreed not to sit during recess and so i'm confident that when the house resumes from recess the committee members will meet again and determine a day to meet myself and uh honorable canadian japan that is the information i have from our committee and i think it was it was a logical uh you know a decision to have been rich because you know the country is is that big uh during recess many members are usually in their constituencies interacting with their constituents and if a committee meeting is called and a member is not able to attend it can impact on on the understatements but it will just allow me a minute we don't we don't have any anymore time actually unfortunately we got we have to go but thank you very much uh alastair sweeney and tamale north mp for joining us for am talk out i'd like to give you the last word and also on the privileged community issue and yeah yeah the privileged committee issue um yes just as he said i'm a member of the committee and we needed the two of them actually not that we extended officially invitation to them and they do not attend so the time that we wanted to sit down we could not even have them so we had to postpone it but then uh my brother i think sometimes things are very funny the way people want to behave when i speak i'm not an angel me i'm not holy holy but something i think that means you shouldn't think it's only for the occasion and murdered other sins in ghana per our bibles and koreans right look the standing order 2080 actually stipulates what constitutes privileged committee handling such issues okay and i'm coming i'm coming let me learn with this and i want you to go and read actions or whatever omissions which impede parliament in this functions or officer or member of parliament in discharge of these duties you come to a code of conduct too it specifies that somebody's private life cannot constitute these things so now that i'm here if i have issues with you and i've been threatening you what has it got to do with parliament what has it already civil action could be take i'm not saying what kennedy did was right or wrong but we have to be very serious in our country especially when it has to deal with certain levels and positions rather if i misbehave towards you i threaten you i could be taken to court civil case no problem it's a bad behavior but what has that got to do with parliament all right then people who are fighting their wives and on the street being slapped and slapping back should be pulled by the privileges committee so the issue is it brings parliament into disrepute we should conduct that so then everybody will be brought so if we out there if i insult somebody if i slap somebody i should be brought to parliament all right is that what we are talking about okay it is in the discharge of parliament functions or an officer in the discharge of his parliamentary duty it's there i'm not saying what can it do what's wrong with right i'm not talking about that right but i think as a people we need to be more serious and sometimes reduce the antagonism because of politics once we do that we create platforms that is what i was talking about ndcmpp when we unnecessarily bring in politics and try to do things just for political power and other things then we define the public to always attack us okay that's what i'm talking about thank you very much uh doctor steven amwa mp for insha so and that to you too uh alastair tamale north mp for joining us for am talk thank you to for for watching we're taking a break after which we're bringing you show this do stay tuned in you're still watching the am show on joy news [Music]<br><!-- wp:image {"id":1776,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} -->rn<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img class="wp-image-1776" src="https://en.videoencontexto.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Row_over_1992_Constitution_Lawmakers_wade_in_on_conversation__AM_Talk_on_Joy_New_jGnZ8d_KibU.jpg" alt="Row over 1992 Constitution: Lawmakers wade in on conversation - AM Talk on Joy News (26-8-21)" /></figure>rn<!-- /wp:image -->[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]