GBA threatens court action over jet if...

The Ghanaian Chronicle reports that the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has demanded that state officials who were responsible for the transaction leading to the acquisition of the new presidential jet, should be personally surcharged with whatever cost the state has incurred in the process.

According to the association, this is because the purchase of the aircraft without the necessary budgetary allocation and without recourse to Parliament, was unlawful and subversive of the rule of the constitution. The Chronicle in a screaming headline story, reports that the intended action of the lawyers was contained in a resolution adopted by the association at its meeting in Kumasi and read at a news conference in Accra by the president of the GBA, Mr Joseph Ebow Quarshie.

The paper says Mr Quarshie, in an answer to a question, disclosed that the GBA would go to court to seek redress if the government fails to address their concern, stating that the General Council of the Bar would take such action to uphold the rule of law.

He is reported to have noted with concern the purchase of the new jet which he said had come in the wake of serious social and economic malaise in Ghana and at a time when the old presidential jet had not been technically declared unsafe. According to Mr Quarshie, this portrays the government as grossly misplacing its national priorities and evidence of lack of sensitivity to the plight of Ghanaians.