The Ghana Association of Banks CEO, John Awuah, has challenged the widely held view that constitutional reform is the key to solving Ghana's developmental woes.
He insists instead that what the country truly needs is a transformation of values and enforcement of existing laws.
In a thought-provoking post on LinkedIn, Mr Awuah argued that Ghana's real enemy is not the Constitution, but the entrenched culture of impunity, corruption, and weak law enforcement. "While I do not oppose the ongoing work on Constitutional Review," he wrote, "I am of the firm view that the Constitution is perhaps the least of the challenges confronting Ghana or our democracy." He pointed out that some nations without even a codified constitution have succeeded in building strong institutions and high-functioning democracies by relying on "laws, conventions, legal precedents, and traditions that have evolved." For him, the issue is not the document but what people choose to do with it. "Our leaders who want to do good can do a lot of good with the constitution we have," Mr Awuah said. "The Constitution does not support corruption, yet we are corrupt.
It has provisions for dealing with the dispensation of justice, yet we see a lot of injustice.
