President Akufo-Addo Gives Assent To Special Prosecutor Bill, 4 Others
The President of
the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has assented to the Bill for
the establishment of the Office of Special Prosecutor, at a brief
signing ceremony at the Flagstaff House, on Tuesday, 2nd January, 2017.
In the presence of the Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia,
President Akufo-Addo also signed the Bills establishing the Zongo
Development Fund, the Coastal Development Authority, the Middle Belt
Development Authority and the Northern Development Authority.
These bills, according to President Akufo-Addo, are “some of the most
important elements of the New Patriotic Party’s (2016) manifesto, upon
which we were elected into office”, and “have now found legislative
expression.”
Signing the Bill for the establishment of the Office of Special
Prosecutor, President Akufo-Addo stated that “my hope and expectation is
that the establishment of this office is going to be an important step
in our collective determination to root out corruption in the public
life of our country.”
The President continued, “All of us know it (corruption) is a major
bane in the development of Ghana, and, hopefully, this office will make
sure that public officials, past and present, are held to account for
their actions, and that corrupt acts will no longer go without
investigation, and, if necessary, sanction, once due process has been
respected.”
On the establishment of the Coastal, Middle Belt and Northern
Development Authorities, President Akufo-Addo explained that, in the
course of the 2016 campaign, the political leadership of the NPP made it
clear it wanted to try a new approach to the development of Ghana – a
new approach which went to the decentralisation of the development
paradigm.
This, the President said, is because the centralised approach to
development witnessed in the aftermath of Ghana’s post-colonial life has
not been successful in delivering development at the grassroots of the
society.
“Therefore, we made this commitment that we will spend on each
constituency, every year, the equivalent of $1 million. These
Development Authorities, which are now going to be put in place, will be
the vehicle for the management of these funds, and the expenditure of
the equivalent of $1 million per constituency commitment,” he added.
Explaining the rationale for the enactment of the Zongo Development
Fund, President Akufo-Addo indicated that “we have insisted that this
particular community, the Zongos, require a special consideration from
our development initiatives, for reasons that are obvious – the
deprivation and under-development that has characterised the lives of
the peoples of the Zongos.
“It is not something that a healthy society can tolerate, and it is
important that affirmative action of the sort is taken to address the
needs of the Zongos. That is what the establishment of this Fund is
going to try to do.”
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