Other members of the Council of State are elected. And then the council helps the president make so many appointments. So Section 70 says: “(1) The President shall, acting in consultation with the Council of State, appoint- (a) the Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice and his Deputies; (b) the Auditor-General; (c) the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator; (d) the Chairmen and other members of – (i) the Public Services Commission; (ii) the Lands Commission; (iii) the governing bodies of public corporations; (iv) a National Council for Higher Education howsoever described; and (e) the holders of such other offices as may be prescribed by this Constitution or by any other law not inconsistent with this Constitution. (2) The President shall, acting on the advice of the Council of State, appoint the Chairman, Deputy Chairmen, and other members of the Electoral Commission.”
Take note that category 70(1)(d) says chairmen [or chairwomen] plus members of the boards of the named state agencies. Since there are over 40 public agencies one can imagine the number of people the president will be appointing and the amount of work-hours he or she will spend to do that including considering the nominations before appointing them. Stilll! The Constitution throws the making of more appointments to the president.
To worsen an already bad situation, the Constitution insists the president must also determine the “salaries and allowances payable, and the facilities and privileges available, to” almost all those heads. It is easy to say the president can delegate others to do it, so why does the Constitution not make the others do it?
One of the worst and disastrous examples of giving the president too much power is in asking him or her to choose most of his or her ministers from Parliament (Article 78(1) of the 1992 Constitution.
The framers of the Constitution explained that away as a hybrid system combining the British and American systems, but for Ti-Kelenkelen that is a weak argument used to hide their true intentions – giving Rawlings the power to control Parliament, whereas they should have allowed themselves to be guided by the answer to the question what happens after Rawlings.
Thus the Constitution was crying for amendments even before we voted in the referendum to adopt it as a working document. That fact is also borne out by the fact that most presidential candidates, most vocal amongst them Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, have always promised to amend several sections to, e.g., free Parliament from under the thumb of the president. Interestingly, all those who have become presidents between Rawlings and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo appear to have duly forgotten their promise to amend it to, at least, the theoretical benefit of the people.
An out-going president does not hand over to the in-coming president. The reason is simple, but the import and implications of why not are very awesome. To begin with, the right to govern is not the president’s. The right to govern belongs to the people, and it is they who hand it to a president the moment he or she is sworn in by the Chief Justice. When a president-elect is sworn into office, what has actually happened is the people have employed him or her to – as we hear others say – serve the people.
The Chief Justice, who swears in the president-elect, does so (as we say in Twi) by standing in the legs of the people. That actually means it is the people who swear in the president, but since all the people cannot do it at once, the Chief Justice, in the people’s stead, swears the president-elect into office as president.
The opening statement of the entire Constitution says:
“IN THE NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD, We the People of Ghana,… DO HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.” Although others drafted the Constitution, the above quote means the moment the people vote in a referendum to accept it, it became an instrument through which the people determine how all aspects of state affairs should run. In fact, the document says in 35(1): “…sovereignty resides in the people of
Ghana from whom Government derives all its powers and authority through this Constitution.”
Thus when the Constitution says in Section 66(1) that “a person elected as President shall, subject to clause (3) of this article, hold office for a term of four years beginning from the date on which he is sworn in as President,” the people give that individual a date on which he or she begins serving them and the date on which that service ends.
Note that the Constitution says nothing about the in-coming president accepting anything from anyone, or the out-going president handing anything to anyone, because the one who does the handing over or taking away of the right to govern is implied in the opening statement of the Constitution – the people; they are the sovereign. It is the people who take away from the out-going president the right to govern and hand over the right to govern to the in-coming president. And they perform each of those acts through the working of the Constitution.
Why is that almost theoretical and tiresome explanation necessary?
The statement that an out-going president hands over power to an in-coming president carries two problems. One, a president does not have any power; what he or she holds is the right to govern, which right was given to him or her by the people upon employing him or her to serve them, the people. The power is the people’s. They put that power in the Constitution as rights to handle the people’s affairs, and through the Constitution tell the president, vice president, Speaker of Parliament and Chief Justice and all other appointees of state which aspect of that right each must exercise and how to exercise it. Those rights are supplemented by laws and regulations blessed by and made in consonance with the Constitution. Simply put, all elected and appointed exercise the right to run affairs of state via power handed them by the Constitution on behalf of the people.
Therefore two, to say an out-going president hands over power or right to govern gives the false impression that that individual owns it and thus (as a prelude) reserves also the power or right to give it away to another person. What if he decides not to exercise that prelude of a right?
The people need such understanding as part of the broader and appropriate perspective of understanding the roles, responsibilities and limits of the president and all other elected and appointed. The people need that understanding to bring themselves to the realisation that they vote for a president to employ him or her to serve them by governing their affairs, not to laud over them. It is on that basis that some philosophers and political scientists say leaders are accountable to the people. Without accountability of leadership to the people, all that is left of a government is monarchy and dictatorship. The French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, made that point very clear centuries ago. And it goes without saying, Ti-Kelenkelen must add, that those outcomes of lack of leadership accountability are true even if the government is elected by the people.
“Without accountability of leadership to the people, all that is left of a government is monarchy and dictatorship.”
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