The Member of Parliament for Asawase, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka has added his voice to calls for the amendment of the 1992 constitution, asserting that it only helps in electing a “monster president who is a superhuman”.
According to him, it is about time the recommendations of the Constitutional Amendment Commission were implemented to cure some of the shortcomings of the Constitution.
The lawmaker reiterated views expressed by many over the years that the constitution gives the president excessive powers, which is abused most of the time.
“I have always said with the greatest respect that the 1992 Constitution only helps us to elect a dictator because if you look at the Constitution, all it does is create a monster president who is superhuman and does almost everything and a lot of checks have to be corrected in the current constitution,” citinewsroom.com quotes Muntaka as saying.
The former minority Chief Whip’s comments follow a concern raised by the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu about the delegation of the Vice President as the Acting President in the absence of the President.
Muntaka said the only antidote to the situation is the implementation of the recommendations by the Constitutional Amendment Commission.
“I keep asking what is preventing us from implementing the recommendations of the Constitutional Amendment Commission because since 2013, we have virtually iced it yet a lot of work has been done and it is just left with the implementation and we have left it hanging. Are we anticipating another amendment because the work the Committee did is very extensive?”
He went further to lament how for the past thirty years the 1992 constitution has been in existence, it has failed to ensure checks and balances in the country’s democratic practice.
“We all know that in a presidential system, checks and balances must exist but that is a system that has been very difficult for us to do for the past 30 years.”
Many activists, Civil Society Organisations and analysts have called for the amendment of the constitution, arguing that some parts of it have outlived their relevance, but successive governments have failed to make it come to pass because they have been the beneficiaries of the failings of the system.
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