Former MP petitions government over constitution review

Lucy Aninwa Anin, a Former Member of Parliament under the Nkrumah-led Administration, has petitioned the Government to review the 1992 Constitution as a matter of urgency.

In the petition, the former Legislator said she was aware of the attempts by the late John Evans Atta-Mills, to review constitution which had proven futile.

She said: “What we require is a bold and unfettered attempt to rewrite the 1992 Constitution to accord with our national aspiration and the dreams of our fearless forefathers by removing the needless indemnity clauses seeking to protect certain people.”

Madam Anin said it was time for the country to review the 1992 Constitution to address the flaws, especially “its support of military coup d’etat dictates and decrees of National Liberation Council”.

She said the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) set up during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) regime under the leadership of President Jerry John Rawlings, disposed most of the nation’s assets to friends, members of the Council and foreign partners.

Quoting the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) 2003, she said the disposition of national assets caused significant financial loss to the state, adding that most of the cases worked on by the SFO involved transactions at the investment department of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust.

Madam Anin said the manner in which human right wrongs were addressed during the National Reconciliation effort, so must the country go through economic reconciliation to restore national assets.

She said: “No nation can survive without restoring their hard-worn infrastructural heritage, which has largely been ‘stolen’ by persons who are known to us.”

The quest for restoration of nation’s assets through a proper restoration process will call for fresh investigations into the mode of acquisition of these assets and, if possible, restore the assets to the state.”

Madam Anin said the answer to the country’s problems rested on the path the citizenry chose to make the God-given resources beneficial to all and sundry.

She said: “We cannot start or even attempt to start the process without a thorough review of the present 1992 Constitution.”

Source: citinewsroom.com