Dec 12, 2012 at 11:45am

The Presidential Policy Advisor, Dr. Sulley Gariba has emphasised the importance of the Presidential Transition Committee indicating that since “the governance of this country is parcelled in four year terms,” it was important for the Committee to be put in place.

“There are mundane issues of governance that have to be transitioned when a government comes to the end of its term and that is why in the wisdom of the crafters of this law, they were very specific that those mundane issues need to be codified in law so that there is no ambiguity whatsoever.”

President John Mahama on Tuesday set up a transition team in accordance with the Presidential (Transition) Act, 2012 (Act 845).

The team, headed by the Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, is expected to oversee the smooth transfer of power to the new administration and take an inventory of all executive assets during the last presidential term.

Several questions have however arisen concerning the essence of the transition team since the winner of the December 7 elections was the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, Dr. Gariba explained that there are three critical issues the transition team is mandated to tackle.

“First of all, there is a stock taking issue so irrespective of which party is coming or going, there has to be stock taking and this law mandates that such a stock taking must start even before the election so that all critical Ministries and Departments Agencies must produce reports of the status of those institutions in readiness for any administration that is coming in again without prejudice of whether that administration is of one political party or another.”

The second issue according to him was to prevent relative confusion “over the nature of presidential estates, vehicles, buildings and all of those sorts of things and again, irrespective of which party is coming to power, there has to be clarity about what is actually on record and what is being transferred.”

The third critical issue, according to him, was "the inauguration of a new government and new President. Again, this law is not leaving it to chance. It’s assigning that responsibility to a legal body that can figure those out.”


By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana