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The case of striking doctors, legitimacy for a call for a Second Chamber Parliament

By Safe Democracy Ghana.
Press Statement The case of striking doctors, legitimacy for a call for a Second Chamber Parliament
AUG 8, 2015 LISTEN

The impasse between the doctors and the government or the government and the doctors is a case of mistrust, transparency and political duopoly which should not have arisen at all in a democratic state where the rule of law is deemed paramount and applicable on all citizens of the land.

Ghana rejected dictatorship, nepotism and opted for the rule of law because that is the only panacea to growth and development.

Once the rule of law is structured and gets legal backing, the people of the land must do whatever there is in the best interest of the nation to obey the laws irrespective of what we are and where we occupy in our societies. In a situation of misunderstanding of the rules of the law, we revert to the courts to seek relief and redress after we have pursued and exhausted the full length of procedural opportunities available to us including the rules and regulations in treating issues that affects our duties to the nation and vice versa.

With an awkward experience in the life of mother Ghana, the people must do nothing stupid to trigger a call for military intervention to “sanitize” the nation.

We must take notice that, it is easier for a small group of people to pull down a government but very difficult to establish liberty. Chaos and anarchy must not have a place in mother Ghana.

It would also be insulting to the intelligence of the Professional Doctors to blame them for what they think the state of Ghana must provide them pari-passu with what their colleagues servants in the political arena (Members of Parliament) and in government take home as salaries and allowances.

If members of the Executive and of the Parliament determine their salaries under Article 71, and the fare wages commissions does so for “the other people” “and the people” think it unfit for their salaries to be determined by the fair wages commissions, then we must call for a change in the law to fix the anomalies.

71 (1) the salaries and allowances payable, and the facilities and privileges available, to- (a) the Speaker and Deputy Speakers and members of Parliament;

(b) the Chief Justice and the other Justices of the Superior Court of Judicature;

(c) the Auditor-General, the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen of the Electoral Commission, the commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice and his Deputies and the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator;

(d) the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and the other members of-

(i) a National Council for Higher Education howsoever described; (ii) the Public Services Commission; (iii) the National Media Commission;

(iv) the Lands Commission; and (v) the National Commission for civic Education;

being expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund, shall be determined by the President on the recommendations of a committee of not more than five persons appointed by the President, acting in accordance with the advice of the Council of State.

(2) The salaries and allowances payable, and the facilities available, to the President, the Vice-President, the chairman and the other members of the Council of State; Ministers of State and Deputy Ministers, being expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund, shall be determined by Parliament on the recommendations of the committee referred to in clause (1) of this article.

(3) For the purposes of this article, and except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, "salaries" includes allowances, facilities and privileges and retiring benefits or awards.

Understandably and in the context of what we the people of Ghana see about the wealth wielding apparitions the politicians garb themselves with, we are left in to limbo.

As a matter of fact the politicians do not spend that many years learning their “Political Art” than the doctors do in learning their art. One would be reserved to thinking the doctors’ time in school and dangers associated with the nature of their duties prepares the grounds for them to deserve their demands under a constitution of government that is so reclusive to the people of the nation that contribute most to its success and failure – the tax payers.

The contest and the contention raises issues with respect to the graduation levels involved in the national service providers and the determinant reasons as to whose services is so important than the other and by virtue of the constitution under which the entire nation subscribed to.

Salaried personnel under Article 71 services is deemed so important than the Ghana Police Service who provide us with security to enable us continue to do what is worth it to secure peace for our daily works, the military who sacrifice not services but their lives to protect and defend the nation against foreign invaders and the teachers who give us education to rise to become what we are as doctors, nurses, business people and judges and bankers.

To avoid a striking nation, transparency must be very paramount in the affairs of the organs of government and in our case the executive and the legislature, the twosome that suffered embarrassingly political cacophony in the annals of the military in the political history of Ghana. All personnel under Article 71 must recognise their leadership positions as a role to acquire honour, grace and inspire pride.

A place of honor, a place of profit and power is so embedded in the hands of salaried personnel under Article 71 that, we needed a countervailing authority to check on them such that they do not abuse power as power, once gained can corrupt absolutely. Surely modalities to contain transparency in the affairs of the nation and to ease tension shall be resolved by subjecting and binding man with countervailing authority that shall not be part of it.

It is in this grooving scenario that, we only can find solace when essential service providers and the people who constitute tax payers and those who matter most in the affairs of the nation and they are not in the political circles should constitute the countervailing authority to relieve those of us of the thorny issues of political administration which we lack.

Safe Democracy Ghana insist and continue to advocate for a Second Chamber Parliament to be made up of representatives of organized labor from within and without Ghana labourunion, Trade union congress, twenty representative from regional houses of chiefs throughout Ghana of which half of them shall be female and members each from Ghana Peace Council.

The population quota for the determination of electing Members of Parliament be increased and the number of Members of Parliament of Ghana be reduced to about one hundred and fifty whilst that of the council of state be elevated to a Second Chamber Parliament with about 70 members and empowered to deliberate, to approve and disapprove of legislations of the Primary Chamber Parliament and to investigate all malfeasance without the need of approval from the President as so indicated in Article 98.2 of the 1992 constitution.

When that is so done, power centeredness in hands of an executive president munificently embedded in Parliament of Ghana shall be reduced and the factor of political duopoly for which the NDC and NPP pride on and turn any national issue into a factional political gist for propaganda and encroachment on the liberties of the people of Ghana shall be forgone.

Long live checks and balances, long live Ghana.
Munir Saani
Executive Secretary
Safe Democracy Ghana.

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