Vigilantism Law Won’t Change Anything – Asiedu Nketia

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has cast doubt on the potential of the vigilantism and Related Offences Bill to curb vigilantism in the country.

According to the NDC the passage of the new law is an exercise in futility.

Parliament on Monday passed the Bill after months of deliberations.

Reacting to the passage of the Bill, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu attributed the increasing cases of vigilantism activities to the inability of successive governments to implement dictates of existing laws.

In an interview with Citi News, he accused the governing New Patriotic Party of lacking the political will to fight vigilantism.

“It won’t bring any impact at all on the fight against vigilantism. I don't think that is the way to go if we are serious about the fight against vigilantism, because first of all nobody has established that the war against vigilantism is proceeding because of inadequacy of law and I am fully convinced that the existing law is capable of dealing with the situation. The problem has been the lack of implementation of the existing laws, so if you had another law and the existing 99 are not implemented, it is not going to impact on anything because if you bring more laws, they conflict with each other,” he said.

Parliament on Monday read for the third time and passed the Vigilantism and Related Offences Bill 2019.

This Bill is expected to among other things curtail political thuggery and rid the country's body politic of rancour.

The Bill was laid amid disagreement from the Minority in Parliament and the National Democratic Congress that argued that a bipartisan engagement which had then been initiated, was the way to go.

These notwithstanding, the Bill was approved by Parliament.

---citinewsroom