News:
August 1, 2017
Chairman of the Constitutional Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Ben Abdallah Banda says the office of the Special Prosecutor Bill when passed into law will stand the test of time despite the controversy that had surrounded it.
“If you quickly pass a Bill and you notice there are a lot of deficiency in it, it will have been better if you have not started at all”.
Speaking with Ghanamps.com, he noted that with the withdrawal of the Bill, it re-laying is within the bosom of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
According to Mr. Banda Parliament on the 14th of July 2017 gazettethe bill and per his calculation, “we have a day for the 14 constitution requirement to elapse any time the AG may decide to re-lay the Bill before the House goes on recess on the 4th of August 2017.
If this is done then the Bill will be referred to the Committee within the recess, we can deal with all matters relating to the Bill so that immediately the House resumes in October, our report can come before the House for second reading, he said.
We can fast track the passage of the Bill before the end of the session so that the law can be captured in the next Budget which will be read in November.
He was however very emphatic that withdrawal of the bill will not put off or disorganize plans of the committee. As road map has not been drawn yet the committee’s meeting two days ago did not come on, but we will have stakeholders’ engagement reason why the Bill cannot run under a certificate of urgency.
“I cannot tell if we will be having Regional tour and travel outside the Country, to seek the views of Ghanaians and Countries of best practices”.
Government is contemplating on passing this Bill into law before the next budget is taken and before the year end, the chairman of the committee said.
“If this is not captured in the next budget the office cannot be established what will be the legal basis for procuring equipment and establishment of the office”
The special prosecutor might not be able to start his or her work so what we intend to do is to ensure that this Bill is passed into law before the end of the session so that it can be factored into the next budget to ensure the necessary resources will be made available in establishing the office, he said.
He remarked that under a certificate of urgency means the bill will have to be passed within a day, but already some people have started to raise some concerns about provisions to appear in the Bill and we need to hasten slowly. But that does not mean the passage is not urgent.
He added that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice is not taken aback with the turn of event, “we did a broad consultation” he point out.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com