Parliament adopt report on University of Ghana Act

Accra, March 3, GNA - Parliament on Thursday adopted the report of its Leadership on the text variation in some provisions of the University of Ghana Act, 2010(Act 806) contrary to the decision taken by the House.

This follows a directive by the Speaker Mrs. Bamford Addo on Tuesday November 2, 2010 for the leadership to investigate and report to the House an anomaly detected in the University of Ghana Act 806.

Section 8 of the Act is about the appointment of the Chairperson of the University of Ghana Council. The decision by Parliament is that the Chairperson should be appointed from among members but this differs from what is stipulated in the relevant section of the law.

The Attorney General's office had pointed out the mistake

to Parliament whiles Papa Owusu-Ankoma, Member of

Parliament (MP) for Sekondi also raised the issue on the floor

of the house. Papa Ankoma said if the decision by Parliament

contravened the constitution and was found to be wrong, the

section should have been referred to the house but this was

not done. He said the house had passed the bill with the President

assenting to it and that its implementation had begun. Though he still insisted that the house should not adopt the

report, his submission was not taken, adding that after

investigation it was found out that the mistake came from the

clerk's office. Papa Ankamah said Parliament needed an independent

legal adviser urging the house to create an office for draftsman

so that in cases of this nature, the house can be advised. Mr Ambrose Dery, Deputy Minority Leader, said that the

issue was an internal affair and the house should try as much

as possible to handle it as such. Mr Mathias Puozaa, Chairman of the Education

Committee, said the committee did not rush through the bill,

"we were convinced in whatever we did to follow best

practices" so let us threat it as an internal affair. Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka-Mubarak, member for

Asawase said the issue of draftsman was super important and

expressed the hope that a time frame will be set up to have it

running. He urged the house to find a way of synchronising all

amendments with the constitution to avoid such

embarrassment in future.