The vetting of President John Dramani Mahama’s ministerial nominees has proved to be a hot bed for political controversy. The opposition New Patriotic Party has seemingly targeted the most outspoken ministerial nominee critics of its recently outgone Nana Akufo Addo administration, taking them up on public statements made against the previous government rather than seeking to assess their professional competence for the positions to which they have been nominated. In response some National Democratic Congress members reacted very strongly – indeed overly so – at last week Thursday’s vetting session, leading to unpalatable scenes of violence in Parliament.
Normally, this newspaper, being economy focused, would avoid commenting on what appears to be a clearly political situation. However we fear that what is happening in Parliament is simply a manifestation of the undue partisanship which has engulfed Ghana’s legislature and which has got so bad that it threatens the ability of government to function for the good of the nation. While optimists hope that when the vetting process is completed, the ongoing extreme partisanship will be replaced by sensible consensus building, we fret that this is simplistic thinking, because of the nature of politicians in relation to the struggle to wield political power.
The President Mahama administration has been given a mandate to bring about sweeping changes to Ghana’s polity, in its declared intention to “reset” Ghana from the ill effects of some of its predecessors more dubious economic governance policies. For instance, it wants to ban mining in forest reserves and near water bodies to heal the environmental degradation the country has suffered from illegal small scale mining in recent years. It is also contemplating a sharp reduction in tax exemptions given to foreign companies for importation of production inputs, to create a more level playing field for their indigenous competitors and to plug the public tax revenues gap that will inevitably arise out of its intention to scrap several tax handles.
To be sure the NDC has the requisite parliamentary majority to push through the policy changes needed for reforms such as these. However President Mahama himself has promised to use dialogue driven consensus to drive his intended reforms, noting that a lack of consultation and consensus was a major cause of NPP’s shortcomings while in power.
But an intensely partisan parliament, with the opposition insisting on partisan political shenanigans rather than non-partisan assessments of government’s policies and appointments will make this difficult.
We therefore call on both political parties to remember that the political election campaign period is over and indeed the elections have been lost and won. Now Parliament should get back to its constitutional duty of law making and the assessment of the Executive’s policies. That is what Ghana needs; and that it is what it deserves.
