Sophia Akuffo ‘worth her salt’ – Apaak

Builsa South MP Dr Clement Apaak has indicated that the impressive performance of Chief Justice nominee Sophia Akuffo and the quality of questions posed by members of the Appointments Committee made the vetting process admirable.

Ms Akuffo was vetted by the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Friday June 16. During the vetting, she said among other things: “Regarding promotion, it has to be reviewed and I will make sure that those processes are brought into play to ensure that no one has been overlooked and no one will be overlooked and it will be based on performance…”

According to her, there was a need for infrastructural upgrade of some of the working environment of some lower court judges as well as improvement in remuneration.

“Not only [promotion of] the lower court judges but also the conditions in which they work in terms of infrastructure and so on,” she said, adding: “There will be a need to do a quick review of the current situation and then make proposals for moving forward within the terms of the general applicable rules in terms of remuneration.”

Commenting on the exercise on TV3’s New Day on Saturday June 17, Dr Apaak said: “If you have a candidate worth her salt and you have a committee also well prepared, you would expect that the processes would be admirable.

“I think that while we can quibble about some of the responses, whether we are satisfied or not is another issue. I think that we must also give parliament credit because what we saw yesterday is a departure from the way it has always been done which means that we are also being innovative in looking at the way we have done this in the past. We should try and see how best we can add to that, augment it.”