Govt To Separate Justice Ministry From A-G

Government will be examining the way forward for the separation of the functions between the Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, Minister for Finance told Parliament on Thursday.

Presenting the 2009 Budget, Dr Duffuor said the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Department would focus on actions aimed at further strengthening the promotion of the rule of law and respect for human rights and good governance.

To this end the Ministry will complete the computerization of Attorney General's Department and its regional offices and provide adequate infrastructure and logistics as well as train legal and non legal staff.

According to the Minister, the Serious Fraud Office will investigate at least 70 per cent of all reported cases, complete the construction of head office building and train key staff to enhance service delivery.

He said the Registrar-General's Department would complete the records computerization programme and establish network facilities to ensure constant inter connectivity between head office and the regional.

The Minister said the Registrar-General's Department had captured information on 95 per cent of all registered businesses in the Department's database thereby reducing the search of business information to just about 30 seconds.

The Department has also built an ultra modern front office where all forms of business registration are undertaken.

He said the Department as part of its decentralization programme had finished the refurbishment of an office block in Tamale to start business registration in the northern sector of the country.

This brings to three the total number of regional offices so far opened by the Department, including the Kumasi and Sekondi.