Reconstitute Vetting Committee- Addo Kufuor

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Friday, 04 July 2014 00:00

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Reconstitute Vetting Committee- Addo Kufuor

Former Minister of Defence in the previous Kufuor administration, Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor has advocated the re-consideration of the composition of the membership of the Vetting Committee of Parliament.

In his view, the Vetting Committee should be made up of some selected Members of Parliament (MPs), representatives of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Christian Council and the Muslim Council.

Others, according to him, include the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), National House of Chiefs, University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), the Ghana Bar Association (GBA).

Dr Addo Kufuor disclosed this in his book which would be published soon.

In his view, a President with executive powers may be tempted to, for the sake of convenience, appoint ‘mediocre, pliant party cronies to positions of authority into his government with the view to escape opposition to his policies even at the Cabinet level.’

He said that the re-composition of the committee with representation from the organized national bodies would be useful in assessing the capacity, integrity, past experience and sustainability of nominees to head ministries of state in order to achieve positive results for the development of the nation.

He noted that such representatives of the organized bodies cannot be influenced in anyway by the President’s nominee and the best would be approved by the committee in the interest of mother Ghana rather than political considerations.

One other way of fighting corruption is to get presidential nominees to political office to present written declaration of assets to the committee during vetting, and once the nominee is approved for the position, the assets so declared are made public, he said.

Dr. Addo Kufuor added that the ‘winner-takes –all’ syndrome in the nation’s body politic is injurious to national unity and makes competitive politics brutal, intimidatory with its accompanying verbal violence.

‘We must pay more attention to our culture as we in Ghana strive to improve the liberal democratic governance we now enjoy,” he said.

He added that countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and India have been able to achieve economic development to enjoy stable open political tradition on the basis of solid cultural base.

‘Without deep respect for a nation’s culture and history, the people’s confidence in themselves and their institutions is undermined,” he noted.

Dr. Addo Kufuor said ‘no society can disregard native wisdom, respect for the collective experience of the elders, discipline, hard work, appreciation of the positive aspects of its culture and expect to thrive.’

Source: By Kwesi Biney