Enforcement of labour law faces problems

Koforidua, March 16, GNA - Mr Francis Agbotse Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Subsidiary Legislation on Friday, said a Legislative Instrument (LI) to support enforcement of the Labour Law had not been brought before Parliament for passage and the National Labour Commission was not showing much interest in its passage. He explained that if the LI was not passed, enforcement of the law could be a problem when a major industrial dispute arose in the country.

Mr Agbotse MP for Ho West announced this at a public forum for the Committee organized by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) in collaboration with USAID at Koforidua.

He said due to the lack of a supportive LI, the law on Piracy could not be enforced because the law required an LI to specify the security device on the tape recording or the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) to enable the police enforce the law.

Mr Agbotse explained that when laws were passed, there was the need for LI or Constitutional Instrument (CI) to support their implementation.

Ms Obeng Dapaah, MP for New Abirem and member of the committee said it had the primary oversight responsibility to check delegated and unregulated power held by individuals or bodies at the national and local levels assign to them by statutory or constitutional instruments. Nana Kwasi Adjei-Boateng, New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive, called for a review of the Standing Order 77 of Parliament for Civil Society Organizations to make sufficient inputs into draft documents before the Subsidiary Legislative Committee.

Mr Kojo Asante, Governance and Legal Policy Officer of CDD-Ghana said for sometime now, the centre had been at the forefront to help build the capacity of the Parliament of the Fourth Republic through the support of USAID.

He said the responsibility of the Committee was to ensure that, bye-laws passed by statutory and constitutional bodies for their enforcement under the constitution or law were in consistent with the mother statute, the constitution as well as other checks.