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The managing partner of the law firm Bentsil-Enchil, Letsa and Ankomah, Mr. Ace Anan Ankomah, told participants at the 70th New Year School (ANYS) that sovereignty was theirs.
This made the country's president their main servant and ministers, mere servants.
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"So, if a person is a president, that person is only your chief servant. It is for no reason that those who work in power are called ministers; the ministers are servants, they are not servants of the president, but servants of you and me, the Ghanaian people in whom sovereignty resides, "he said.
Mr. Ankomah said this during his discussion on the topic: "Civic Education – Building a Stronger Civil Society for Effective Accountability", at a panel discussion held last Wednesday at 70 ANYS.
He declared that the solemn commitment to the principles of democracy, openness and government of the people and not of kingship, included in the preamble of the 1992 Constitution, guaranteed that all the powers of the Government derive from the sovereign will of the people.
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"England could have a sovereign Parliament, we do not have a sovereign Parliament. You and I are the repository of sovereignty in Ghana, "he said pbadionately, his fist closed.
Rights and responsibilities
Ankomah said the constitution provides many rights and opportunities for citizens to be accountable for their governance and well-being.
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This extended to social movements formed by citizens to provoke or resist change.
He said that the right of sovereignty rested on the people and went hand in hand with duties or responsibilities.
"Your right is always badociated with your duty and the main duty that the constitution imposes on you, besides the right to protest and preserve public property, to expose and to combat misuse and misuse of funds. and public goods, "he told participants.
"Our rights are inseparable from the performance of our duties," he said.
He stated that the duty to denounce and combat the misuse of public goods was at the root of the formation of social movements.
"Social movements should therefore be an essential part of our commitment to consolidating democracy," said Ankomah.
"It would be a shame if all we were doing to promote democracy was to vote every four years to punish anyone in power who has drawn our anger and anger," he added.
Rather, he said: "We should be interested in what a government does while it is in power! …", he said.
He added that if citizens did not hold politicians on fire, they would do it as they wished, knowing that they had a four or eight year cycle to enjoy a mode of life that they could only have dreamed of.
He added that the country's political duopoly, without a third force, meant that social movements would be the third force for change.
"Until a viable third party is formed, social movements would be the third viable party in the country," he said.
Critical
When the president of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ms. Josephine Nkrumah, took her turn, she criticized Ghanaians who had used to blame the CNCE for all the evils of the society.
She said that, even though it was unfair that all the blame was blamed on the CNCE because people thought it did not educate enough people, this state of affairs was positive, though.
It was positive, she said, because it showed that people wanted to know and involve the system.
She said that as the CNCE had the responsibility to raise awareness, it was financially constrained and, like other institutions, they were looking for the same source of money from the government.
"Imagine that last year our budget was 2 million GH ¢; and of the 2 million GH ¢, we have 254 district offices, 10 regional offices and one headquarters. This GH ¢ 2 million must encompbad our entire district, region and headquarters to carry out civic education. We must use it for programs, we must use it for goods and services, we must use it for all operations, including fuel, utilities, rent, name -the! She said.
She added that the situation had worsened because they had barely received a million GH ¢, the outputs of the third and fourth quarters of 2018 having never succeeded.
Responsibility
"So we have a lot to do and, as I said, civic education is a shared responsibility. Therefore, beyond what the NCCE does, every person must, by default, become a civic educator and that starts at home, the school, the religious platforms, your work, what you do to promote the civic conscience, "said Nkrumah.
She added that if the provisions of the Constitutions were respected, they would properly guide and emphasize the collective roles of each as responsible citizens, who actively participate in the deep democratization of the country by saying "It starts with you."
Nkrumah said that while all could continue to task the government and public institutions to ensure democratization, they should all remember that active citizens were in control of the whole process of success.
She added that, until everyone realized that governance gave them the power to secure the necessary progress, the country would continue to sink into powerlessness and expected the government to "get the job done." he acts.
To be involved
"Ghana will remain under-exploited and unchanged unless we are all deliberately committed to change," she said.
She invited all participants to get involved, to identify the members of the local unit committees to find out what development efforts were under way in their various localities, and asked for OccupyGhana, a lobby group. , to join the advocacy so that the CNCE has more resources to engage in civic awareness across the country.
Professor Michael Tagoe, Acting President of the College of Education and Dean of the School of Continuing and Distance Learning of the University of Ghana, was the president.
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