Former President Agyekum Kufuor has reiterated his call for the extension of the tenure for the president to accelerate socio-economic development of the country.He explained that for a developing country such as Ghana, when a president wins an election, he comes to meet drawbacks which he has to tackle, a “four-year tenure was too short”.
Former President Kufuor said even though his term of office was too short, he did not think he could tamper with the Constitution to extend his term of office and indicated that “knowing poor countries of the world including our country which want to go democratic and multiparty, you work your way through canvassing for votes and assume that when you get to office you’ll meet national treasury that will enable you do the works.
“You come and then be confronted with empty chest, no money, it takes time, when there is also majority of first-time parliamentarians, it is difficult for new administration to get their policies, programmes and social interventions approved and get development works that they have promised the citizenry to get executed because parliamentarians need time to settle. “Constituting a cabinet of 19 ministers too is difficult, I proposed every government gets five years in office because an elected government should be able to use one year out of the five-year term to compose his cabinet members to settle in and get the policy formulation getting in place.
“If you allow five-year as I tried to explain, into the second year, the executive will find its feet, legislature will know workings and then be able to hold executive to account, third year, policies laid and passed through parliament will be spreading through populace, fourth year, the government if it is worth its salt everybody will realise, fifth year, everybody is crazy because it is election year and you hardly get ministers at ministries working because everybody’s mind is on electorate and how to get re-elected.
“The citizenry’s constitution defines the state and the citizenry, by promulgating the constitution we define what the state is and institutions of state and if the constitution states four-year tenure for you as president, unless they amend constitution to lengthen the stay you can’t do it,” former President Kufuor pointed out.-ghanaweb.com
