 Ghana is seeing discussions on a review of its constitution which is framed in 1992. Viewers of people's dispatch would know such discussions on constitutions are taking place in many parts of the world. People are increasingly unhappy with their constitutions which are framed during the height of the neoliberal era in the 80s and in the 90s, which had policies which privileged the few, which privileged the rich and left the vast majority really struggling. So what kind of discussions are taking place in Ghana? These are pretty high-end discussions, former presidents taking part, leaders of civil society taking part. But what is a radical and progressive perspective on reviewing your constitution? We have with us Quasi Prath Jr., General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, an activist who has been on the political scene for decades, who also presented his proposals in one of these discussions. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Right. So to begin with, I just wanted to sort of, if you could maybe give us, understand in what context this 1992 constitution was first framed, because as far as I understand your critique starts from that point itself, the fact that there was an ideology inherent in the 1992 constitution when it was framed. Well, I think it's important to recognize that the first major review of the Ghanaian constitution took place after 1966, after the overthrow of the Nkrumah government. And the framers of that second constitution were intent on abolishing socialism or anything that sounded like socialism. As a matter of fact, they even undermined the Republican status, which we gained on July 1, 1916, by declaring a second republic. Now, we've been in the process of declaring republics, up to the point where now you are supposed to have a fourth republic. As if the first republic we had didn't exist or collapsed or something, but that Republican status has not changed until now. This is the effort of the adherents of the neoliberal philosophy, those who supported the overthrow of the Nkrumah government to paint the impression that there's a new era, a new era of deeper democracy and so on. It's important to recognize that in 1992, we're in the midst of the pursuit of a neoliberal agenda which had been instigated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And that was done under the jackboots of military dictatorship and following mass agitation which we led, it became important for some constitutional order to be instituted. Now, that constitution was really instituted in order to protect the elite which had pursued the neoliberal order. So, for example, there were transitional provisions in the constitution which made it impossible to prosecute those who had been in government, ministers, head of state, and so on, for any crimes they could have committed against the state. So the constitution was flawed at the initial. Now, since then, there have been a clamor for a major review of the constitution and the first major review of the constitution actually happened under President Atta Mills that was after 2008, where he set up a committee which brought up proposals for the review of the constitution. The recommendations were never implemented and this new effort is actually led by the Institute of Economic Affairs and chaired by a former speaker of parliament who is a leading member of the government party and his name is Professor Mike Oakley. So that's where we are. Right. So in this context, often when we talk about constitutions, there is a discussion that takes place that, you know, is it the problem of the constitution itself or is it the fact that, say, there are some, there are powerful elites which are sabotaging the constitution. So these are often presented as maybe different issues, but often they're actually very closely interlinked. So taking the 1992 constitution, how do you see this question? What, how is the document sort of structured? How does it, you know, what kind of a state does it envisage? And how does, you know, it lead to the kind of political chaos, for instance, that there's maybe a say witnessing today? Well, no amount of words, however lofty they may sound, can actually address the grievances of the underprivileged against the elite. So if that is the cardinal thing that we are worried about, the fact that the disadvantage have no role to play in our politics, indeed, they have victims of our politics and so on. The way forward is no constitutional review. Your constitutions do not guarantee freedom by themselves. Constitutions do not by themselves guarantee economic prosperity and so on. It is, it is, it is the people who wet the constitution. It is the people who interpret the constitution. It is how the constitution is wet, which may become the problem, of course, the idea of your flaws, you know, in this constitution. But the cardinal point is, what do we do in order to make the people of Ghana masters of their own destiny? What do we do in order to make sure that the resources of Ghana are owned by the people of Ghana and exploited for the benefit of the people of Ghana? What do we do in order to guarantee the rights of the downtrodden, the rights of 80s, for example, you know, and so on? So that is the critical question. It's not just about constitutional review. Constitutional review may be desirable, but it does not solve anything if you have fascist in power. Constitutions have been abused all over the world. Constitutions may be written in the most lofty language if you have a judicial system that is subservient to the neocolonial elite. What you have is neocolonialism and that is not liberation for the working people of our country. Absolutely. So in this context also quickly wanted to take you to some of the more structural aspects in terms of how, you know, how you would envisage reform and I believe you also give a presentation during this review discussion. So in terms of the more practical integrity, where do you think interventions need to be made to sort of bring about what you're talking about that a constitution which can actually help the poorer sections be underprivileged more? Well we have a constitution which establishes a parliament, which parliament is completely divorced from the people. For example, local government structures have no way of contributing to parliamentary debate and shaping visions which are crafted by parliament. So we need to change that situation for the grassroots organizations like the district assembly, the municipal assemblies and so on to have a voice in national policy formulation and implementation. Now again, even if you look at the existing assemblies, the municipal assemblies, the district assemblies and so on, 30% of its membership is appointed by the president. I mean there's no reason for that. We have to have confidence in the people's ability to make decisions for themselves and that 30% which is reserved for the president ought to be taken out of the constitution for the district assemblies and municipal assemblies to represent the true will of our people and so on. Now we also are operating under the assumption that this is a secular constitution. And in spite of the assumption that this is a secular constitution, the preamble to the constitution is a complete disaster. It's a preamble which says that we are adopting the constitution in the name of the Almighty God. That is not secularism. Now if you look at some of the constitutional institutions, like the National Media Commission, it's composed largely by the elite, you know, representative of the Ganaba Association, representative of the Christian Council, representative of the Muslim Council and so on. We think that that process needs to be democratized in order to have genuine people's representation, which may include, for example, the trade unions and so on. Now if you look at the religious makeup of the National Media Commission, you would find that African traditional religion is completely omitted. It doesn't make sense if you want to achieve the ends of secularism. If you want to demonstrate that indeed people are free to belong to all religions and people are free to practice all their religions and indeed different religious manifestations would have representation in the national voice and so on. Then it becomes important even to diversify the membership of the National Media Commission. Now how do we determine the path to development? The path to development is determined by institutions which are largely occupied by the elite and that's a problem. We need to think about that and so on. Then we have also a constitution which is crafted on the assumption of the principle of separation of powers, where the judiciary is supposed to be independent from the legislature and independent from the executive and so on. But it doesn't work in our circumstances and it doesn't work in our circumstances likely because the president is enjoined by the constitution to a point 50 percent of his ministers from parliament. So through that process, the president is able to manipulate the parliament. I mean people go to parliament in expectation that they'll become ministers who has the power to make them ministers. The president, you cannot become a minister if you're not pandering to the whim of the president and so on. So that even undermines the bourgeois principle of the separation of powers and so on. So we need to rethink that. Now as we speak Ghana probably has one of the largest number of ministers in the world. We have about 130 ministers for a country the size of Ghana with a population of 31 million. Ghana has more ministers than China. Ghana has more ministers than the United States of America. Ghana has more ministers than Russia and so on. Now I think that if we're going to think with the constitution, we might as well do it in such a way that public expenditure is reduced substantially and we can reduce public expenditure substantially by cutting down the number of governmental points. It doesn't make sense that we have so many ministers in such a small country like Ghana. Absolutely and finally I think if for many countries across the world there's now a discussion on what sovereignty means. Countries which are subjected to for instance the whims of the IMF, the World Bank, many of them having very little control over their economic policies and like you said their own path to development is absolutely not in their hands. So is there something for instance in when we're talking about constitutional review that you know could be brought in to address these aspects as well? Well when we appeared before this committee which is looking at the possibility of reviewing the constitution, we advocated quite strongly that there needs to be a provision in the constitution which commits us to the pursuit of the ends of an Africanism, the United States of Africa and we did that because sovereignty within a current context doesn't make any sense at all. The boundaries of African countries were not determined by the African people, their interest was not taken into account when the boundaries were defined. These boundaries were defined by the colonial powers who met in Bourne as the invitation of Otto von Bismarck to divide Africa into their spheres of influence. We cannot be proud of these boundaries, we cannot uphold these boundaries as a definition of our nation states you understand. So it's important for us to tear down these boundaries to build on pan-African unity to make sure that our peoples whether they're in the north or the south whether they're in the east or the west can work together to realize the aspirations of the national liberation movement and go beyond aspirations with national liberation movement and pursue a path to development which takes us out of underdevelopment which makes us masters of our own destiny which puts our resources in our own hearts. Absolutely thank you so much for talking to us and giving us I think an understanding of what constitution should be not only in Ghana but I think in many other parts of the world where similar discussions are taking place, where discussions are taking place about more progressive and radical constitutions and like you said essential to bring back what socialism is to the debate it was maybe removed from many of our constitutions but really it's time to bring it back thank you so much for talking to us. Well thank you very much thank you very very much thanks. That's all in today's discussion we'll be bringing you many more such debates about constitutions about how people can expand their rights about the struggles needed for that in future videos of people's dispatch keep watching.