Month: February 2012

Parliament Wednesday inched towards the passage of the Intestate Succession Bill when the bill passed through its second reading stage.

The Bill, which was laid before the House on November 3, 2009 and referred to the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for consideration and report, seeks a more responsive approach to the needs of nuclear families whose parents and spouses die intestate.

According to members of the committee, they had spent more than two years to deliberate on the bill because of its sensitive nature.
When passed, the bill will replace the Intestate Succession Act, 1985 (PNDC Law 111).

According to the memorandum accompanying the bill, its objective is to remove the anomalies in the present law relating to intestate succession and to provide a uniform intestate succession law that would be applied throughout the country irrespective of inheritance system of the intestate and the type of marriage.

According to the memorandum, the present law on intestate succession appears to be overtaken by changes in the Ghanaian family system.

The importance of the extended family system was gradually shifting to the nuclear family as pertained in other parts of the world.

However, the well-entrenched family law system had provided very little protection for surviving spouses and children.

In its deliberation, the committee observed that intestate succession and its attendant socio-legal issues continued to pose challenges largely due to the pluralistic nature of the family law system of the country.

It said after over 25 years of the coming into force of PNDCL 111, there were still difficulties in its implementation due to the increasing importance of the nuclear family.

The committee’s report said some key issues that emerged during deliberations, particularly during the public hearings, had been addressed in the bill.

They included the need for enhancement of provisions for children of school age, the need to put a cap on the amount to be treated as household property, the need for enhancement of entitlements for the longest serving spouse within the context of a polygamous marriage, status of additional spouse married under customary law in relation to the spouse under the ordinance.

The Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, moved the motion for the bill to go through the second reading and he was seconded by the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Emmanuel Kwasi Bandua.

The second reading stage of a bill is a stage when the principles underlying the introduction of the bill are discussed.

But before he could move the motion for the House to debate on principles of the bill, some members from the Minority side raised concerns about the whereabouts of the substantive Attorney-General and Minister of Justice.

The Minority argued that a deputy minister was put in place to assist the substantive minister and in a case where there was no substantive minister, “who is the deputy minister there to assist?”

After a lengthy debate, however, he was allowed to move the motion.

The Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, observed that the time was ripe for Ghana to take the bull by the horn and enact an interstate succession law that would stand the test of time and enhance the wellbeing of children whose parents died before they become independent in life.

Daily Graphic

Madam Samia Yaba Nkrumah, Chairperson of Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) has commended African leaders and thinkers for their strong consensus to adopt regional integration as a tool for unlocking the economies of scale and sharpening competitiveness.

She said the continent had a market of one billion consumers which could be a powerful engine for growth and employment to promote intra-African trade as a top priority.

Samia who is also the MP for Jomoro made this known during the unveiling of Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s statue at the new African Union (AU) Headquarters in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.

The event was part of the activities marking the 18th Summit of African Heads of State at the AU on January 28 on the theme: “increasing intra-African trade.”

Madam Nkrumah said despite the introduction of free trade areas, customs unions, and common markets within the Region, the level of intra-African trade remains among the lowest in the world.

She noted that only about 10 per cent of African trade was within the continent, compared to about 40 per cent in North America and about 60 per cent in Western Europe.

“I believe we are in agreement that what will transform Africa’s potential in the end is pan-continental trade, underpinned by concrete and substantial agreements,” she said.

She explained that intra-African trade is a golden key to sustain growth since many African countries are on the point of making the transition from dependence.

Madam Nkrumah said the continent needed a strong and unified voice in global trade to deliver a better deal for its citizens and be a significant driver of growth for the world in the era ahead.

She said the greatest honour and everlasting tribute Africa could pay to Dr Nkrumah was the realisation of his dream of integration of the African economy on a continental scale to deliver greater prosperity for the people.

“This challenge falls to our generation of leaders. For too long the borders of our nations have been allowed to hold Africa’s people back. We believe it is time to make African free trade the common purpose of the continent”, she said.

She called on African Leaders to set a wonderful legacy for the founding fathers of AU by placing the continent on a path to prosperity and stability.

GNA

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has commended members who participated in the party’s recent parliamentary primaries across the country.

“We salute all our gallant men and women, who boldly step-up to contest for parliamentary seats against all odds. Your participation has helped to deepen both internal democracy as well as broaden the parameters of multy-party democracy in the country.

“The outcome, notwithstanding, you are winners…the losers contribution to the party cannot be quantified in monetery terms and you prepare the winners for the battle ahead,” Mr Djanie Neequaye Magoah, a leading member of the party stated in a press statement made available to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

The statement that was issued by NDC Intimate Club, appealed to the national leadership of the party, Majority Leader in Parliament and other leading members of NDC to create a platform for all losers and winners to fraternise and share ideas.

It called on the party’s flagbearer and parliamentary aspirants to join forces, and defeat the opposition political parties in the forthcoming polls. The statement said: ”Nobody should sit on the fence, we are one big family, we must therefore work together for total victory on December 7, 2012”.

It said it was unfortunate that calls were being made for the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer of Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), and said it was ill-timed, and calculated to derail efforts of the AMA to decongest Accra.

The statement called on all political parties to join the AMA in its quest to bring sanity to Ghana’s capital city.

The Legislative Instrument (LI) for the creation of additional districts and municipalities will be laid before Parliament by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development on Tuesday, February 7, 2012.

The LI, which will mature 21 days after its presentation, will also provide the platform for the Electoral Commission (EC) to create more constituencies in the run-up to the December general election.

Already, President John Evans Atta Mills has signed the Executive Instrument for the creation 42 new districts, which has also been gazetted by the Attorney-General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice.

The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the ministries of Local Government and Rural Development and Justice had also trashed out all issues with the Parliamentary Select committees on Subsidiary Legislation and Constitution and Local Government with regard to the LI.

He said by the LI, the government was also seeking to amend sections of Act 462, particularly Section (1) 4 (A) to ensure that the act legalised the existing reality created by the previous administration.

He explained that during President Kufuor’s administration, some municipalities were created with the view to accelerating development, even though their creation did not comply with the stipulated requirement that a municipality must be a single compact settlement.

Mr Ofosu-Ampofo mentioned that some of the municipalities, such as Nzema East and Ga West, did not conform to the ‘single compact settlement’ requirement but were created to engender accelerated development.

He said the amendment, which would be placed before Parliament under a certificate of emergency, was seeking to take out the single compact settlement requirement to be able to create new municipalities which would also be consistent with existing law.

In a separate interview, the Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, said the commission would create new constituencies after the creation of new districts.

That, he said, was because the formula for creating additional constituencies included the number of existing districts, quotations for each region and other variables, adding that “the ideal thing is that the districts are created first before the creation of constituencies”.

On the question of the number of constituencies to be created, Dr Afari-Gyan said, “No one can tell you how many additional constituencies will be created until the districts are created.”

The Supreme Court is expected to give its judgement on February 15, 2012 in a case brought before it by two residents of Nungua, near Accra, that the EC and the Attorney-General should review the 230 constituencies.

They want the EC to alter the constituencies following the publication of the enumeration figures after the 2010 Population Census and in accordance with the egalitarian principle of fair representation embodied in the 1992 Constitution, especially Article 47(3) and (4) of the 1992 Constitution.