CDD-Ghana lauds Africa for consolidating the continent's democratic gains

The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has lauded Africa governments for embracing, strengthening and consolidating the gains of democracy on the continent.

The civil society organisation, however, noted the resurfacing of some negative democratic tendencies remained problematic on the continent and needed to be tackled proactively. Mr. Paul Osei-Kuffour, Programmes Manager, CDD Ghana, who gave the commendation, said it was unfortunate some governments on the continent had abused political power by extending their terms of office, a situation which threatened Africa's democracy…

Constitutional review should not tackle only one arm of government but also the others as well as all the flaws in society, says a retired Supreme Court Judge, Mr. Justice Stephen Alan Brobbey. According to Justice Brobbey, there is the need for a wider stakeholder engagement and thinking on the review in order not to focus on only one aspect of governance such as the judiciary to the neglect of all the flaws in society that needed to be fixed. "If you have the chance to review the constitution, don't only concentrate on the judges but the sort of redundancies we have in society that we can correct and if you do that, you will have a few questions to answer," he explained...

The Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) yesterday held stakeholder engagement to deliberate on key aspects of the 2021 CHRAJ bill that needed to be amended. The areas to be amended included sections 11A to 11E, which cut across “Designation as National Preventive Mechanism (NPM); Function of NPM; Powers of Authorized Persons; Visit by the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture; and Offences and Penalties. Section 27 subsection 2, which is on Interpretation/ Definitions, is also to be amended. The one-day workshop held in Accra sought to provide solutions to legal frameworks surrounding the formulation of the NPM as a division of the CHRAJ...        

As European Union and African Union representatives meet on Monday 28 November 2022 to review progress following the EU-AU Summit in February, 32 African and European civil society organisations have raised concerns about threats to ground-breaking EU transparency measures, which could threaten all that has been put in place to prevent and combat the problem of illicit financial flows out of Africa. 

The Center for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch organisations state:

“Illicit financial flows rob African nations of almost US$89 billion each year. Anonymous companies are often used as the get-away vehicles of the corrupt, helping syphon these funds out of Africa – often to Europe – denying countries revenues that could be used to boost economies, and fund health and education systems.

“The EU has been a trailblazer in cracking down on the use of these phantom firms. The requirement under the 2018 Anti-Money Laundering Directive for EU countries to set up and make public registers of beneficial owners of companies was a major step forward, helping shine a light on this murky world. A 22 November 2022 ruling by the European Court of Justice invalidating these rules and so denying public access to beneficial ownership information is therefore extremely concerning...