Policy Think Tank, IMANI Ghana says it is opposed to calls for the death penalty to be abolished.
Even though Ghana has not recorded any incidence of execution by death penalty since 1993, the number of death sentences has increased from nine in 2014 to 18 in 2015.
As of December 31 last year, there were 137 people, including three women, on the death row in Ghana, seven of whom are foreign nationals.
Amnesty International, Ghana has described the situation as worrying and has called on the state to take appropriate steps to expunge the death sentence through a referendum.
But speaking at a debate organised by the Ghana Growth and Development Platform (GGDP) with support from Citi FM on the election of MMDCEs and the abolition of the death penalty, the Vice President of IMANI Ghana, Kofi Bentil, said it will be a wrong move for government to abolish the death penalty.
“As a principle we [IMANI Ghana] do not think that abolishing the death penalty is a good thing.”
Mr. Bentil believes “not every member of the society deserves to be around.”
“When they have crossed a certain line and they cannot be of use to the society but are likely to constitute a terrible blight on society then under the principle of the social contract and in the interest of everybody else it may be better for us to take them out of society.”
He also emphasized the need for society to draw the lines between what constitutes a crime that requires a death penalty sentence.
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