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29.04.2007 General News

“Executive Presidency Not Good For Ghana”

29.04.2007 LISTEN
By N. Herald

Politician and business tycoon Alhaji Asuma Banda has said the country should revert to the Westminster system of government because the Executive Presidency is too advanced for the country. He also recommended the same system of governance for Africa in the face of the abuses that characterize governance on the continent.

The Westminster systems of government is headed by a Prime Minister (PM), with the ceremonial Head of State. The last such government in Ghana was the Dr. Kofi Abrefa's Progress Party government. Alhaji Asuma expressed regrets at the events leading to the last political elections in Nigeria as pathetic but insisted the situation was no different from most of the countries on the continent that practiced the presidential system, Ghana included.

He told Network Herald in an interview in Accra, that politicians in Ghana have a very negative appreciation of their role and said the only way Ghana could move forward in progress was to move away from the current system for the more relevant parliamentary system of governance. Explaining why the current system is too advanced for Ghana, Alhaji Asuma said “Africans by nature are dictators so it would be more appropriate to go back to where the colonial masters left us: the Westminster system.


He explained further that in such an environment, all parties get to play a role without any artificial limits to how long a government could go, depending on whether or not that government had satisfied the demands of the people. The Prime Minister under a Parliamentary system of government must have a constituency to elect him into parliament in the first place.

The PM nurses his constituency first among equals of parliamentarians and shows respect and is by the circumstances of the system, forced to respect and appreciate core traditions of his party and the state. Alhaji Asuma said events on the floor of Parliament had demonstrated the inability of parliamentarians to work purposefully. “How come that in some instances, parliamentarians have contributed to the President's annual addresses even when it was obvious they had not thoroughly read the subject. He pointed out however that for such a system to succeed, the country must have a solid middle class capable of directing affairs of state.

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