Ghana needs "Jet Track Courts" - DG of GIMPA

Dr Stephen Adei, Director-General of GIMPA, on Monday said this country needed a "jet track" legal system to ensure investor confidence necessary for the realisation of Ghana's developmental aspirations.

He noted that it was unfortunate for the Supreme Court to have declared the fast track court system unconstitutional in the twenty-first Century, saying: "what we need is not fast track courts, but jet track courts which are faster."

Dr Adei was delivering the second of two lectures organised by the Information Services Department (ISD) to mark the 45th Independence Day celebration under the topic: "Discipline - an essential tool for national development."

He said the Supreme Court's decision in favour of the unconstitutionality of the fast track court system did not only reflect the persistent indiscipline in the country, but also sent a signal to investors that "we are not serious about our court computerisation programme.

"This trend belongs to the 17th Century and we are still struggling over the constitutionality or otherwise of a feature as little as computerisation of the judicial system in the 21st Century," he said. "We need to be serious."

He observed that the country was plagued with the problems of poverty, corruption, environmental degradation, slow and unreliable judicial system and low productivity, among other things, all due to policy and management indiscipline by previous administrations.

Dr Adei said the country was heavily indebted and poor not by the doing of the current administration but due to non-observance of "developmental software".

"There is absolute disregard for proper work ethics, time management, honesty, commitment to work and other intangible but important values, which constitute the software that would generate the hardware in terms of infrastructure, jobs and food among other things."

He said the current government only acknowledged the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) status and did not cause it adding that the Minister of Finance was right in saying that the country could not spend what it did not earn as a first step of ensuring financial discipline.

He noted that the problems of ghost names on pay rolls in the civil and public service was absolutely unacceptable, saying that the Controller and Accountant-General and the Auditor-General must be held responsible.

Dr Adei explained that there were less than half a million public service workers and little over 100,000 civil service workers, saying that it should not have been that difficult to determine, who was being paid for work not done as it was easy to count over six million people in a day during an election.

"The Accountant-General and the Auditor-General cannot pretend as if they are rather helping the government to solve the problem of ghost names. They are to blame for the loss of over 300 billion cedis quoted by the Minister of Finance."

Dr Adei said the recent spate of student agitations in the country called for strict sanctions and where necessary the students involved should be expelled from the schools in question.

"The students involved in the recent Prempeh College, University of Ghana and polytechnic affairs have no business remaining students of their respective schools. They must be expelled with immediate effect.

"The polytechnic students leadership, who dared to issue an ultimatum to the President must be expelled and those who feel they cannot study to meet the upgraded standard should go home and allow those who can to be admitted into the polytechnics."

He said the act of indiscipline in schools can no more be treated with kid's gloves. "If we are serious about the future of this country - students' vandalism of the kind which happened at Prempeh College and University of Ghana Commonwealth Hall should attract strict punitive action."

Dr Adei also blamed military interventions for part of the problems the country was facing. "When soldiers are not able to discipline themselves to remain in the barracks and protect our territorial integrity, but decide to go to the Castle and into the ministries, we have a problem.

"Our history has shown that military regimes, resulting from undisciplined and unbridled desire in military men for civilian power has done us more harm than good."

He said this country needed a national disciplinary advisory board to oversee the formulation, implementation and maintenance of strict disciplinary codes. "I suggest that we visit our traditions and change for instance the famous Kwaku Ananse stories to reflect honesty and good morals rather than dishonesty as heroic values," he said.

"The man hours wasted on traditional ceremonies such as funeral and other rites must be reviewed," Dr Adei added.