Not too late to amend Reconciliation Act - Mumuni

Mr Mohammed Mumuni, NDC MP for Kumbungu, said on Wednesday that it was not too late to take a step back to amend the National Reconciliation Commission Act to meet the will of all Ghanaians.

"In a haste, the government did not listen to divergent views and today they are lamenting because people see it more as an NPP exercise than a national one", he said.

Mr Mumuni was speaking at a symposium organised by the Tema Chapter of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Alumni on the topic, "National Reconciliation - The Way Forward" as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of the University.

He said the need for national reconciliation was a good thing but the way it was being managed by the government left much to be desired, especially, when the government ignored all calls by many Ghanaians regarding which periods of the country's political history it should cover.

Mr Mumuni, who spoke on the minority perspective on the issue, said; "the minority thinks the agenda for national reconciliation is good, but there are certain confidence building measures, which are missing, thus, losing its national character".

He said there was an extent of hate and division among the people dating back to the country's independence in 1957 and it was important to include all those periods up to January 6, 1993 to give the Commission's work a neutrality.

"If we want to establish an authoritative record of violation of human rights for this country, then we have to go back to the days of the Preventive Detention Act (PDA), the Aliens Compliance Order, which are vital in the country's history", Mr Mumuni said.

He said the "'window of opportunity,' which may allow victims of injustice of other political eras excluded from the Reconciliation Act was an apartheid way of doing things and equally unjust under the 1992 Constitution".