News:
March 4, 2011
Parliament on Thursday adopted the report of its Leadership on the text variation in some provisions of the University of Ghana Act, 2010(Act 806) contrary to the decision taken by the House.
This follows a directive by the Speaker Mrs. Bamford Addo on Tuesday November 2, 2010 for the leadership to investigate and report to the House an anomaly detected in the University of Ghana Act 806.
Section 8 of the Act is about the appointment of the Chairperson of the University of Ghana Council. The decision by Parliament is that the Chairperson should be appointed from among members but this differs from what is stipulated in the relevant section of the law.
The Attorney General’s office had pointed out the mistake to Parliament whiles Papa Owusu-Ankoma, Member of Parliament (MP) for Sekondi also raised the issue on the floor of the house. Papa Ankoma said if the decision by Parliament contravened the constitution and was found to be wrong, the section should have been referred to the house but this was not done.
He said the house had passed the bill with the President assenting to it and that its implementation had begun.Though he still insisted that the house should not adopt the report, his submission was not taken, adding that after investigation it was found out that the mistake came from the clerk’s office. Papa Ankamah said Parliament needed an independent legal adviser urging the house to create an office for draftsman so that in cases of this nature, the house can be advised.
Mr Ambrose Dery, Deputy Minority Leader, said that the issue was an internal affair and the house should try as much as possible to handle it as such.
Mr Mathias Puozaa, Chairman of the Education Committee, said the committee did not rush through the bill, “we were convinced in whatever we did to follow best practices” so let us threat it as an internal affair.
Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka-Mubarak, member for Asawase said the issue of draftsman was super important and expressed the hope that a time frame will be set up to have it running. He urged the house to find a way of synchronising all amendments with the constitution to avoid such embarrassment in future.
Source: GNA