Ghana Government Statistician to become Statistician-General following constitutional review report
As African Ministers responsible for civil registration meet in Durban, South Africa in the first week of September 2012, Ghana is likely to be highly commended for the decision to insulate the Ghana Statistical Service from political control by giving it the status of an Independent Constitutional Body (ICB).
The country’s Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) has recommended an amendment to the constitution to elevate the Service to the level of an ICB like the Electoral Commission and Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice.
The government in a White Paper on the CRC’s report accepted the recommendation that the Ghana Statistical Service be made independent and that the name ‘Government Statistician’ be changed to ‘Statistician-General’.
“Government also accepts the recommendation that the independence of the Statistician-General be entrenched,” it says in the White Paper issued in June 2012.
The CRC was set up under the Constitution Review Commission of Inquiry Instrument 2010, C.I.64, and was mandated to consult Ghanaians and collect their views on the operation of the 1992 Constitution, its strengths and weaknesses and to recommend to the government for consideration a draft bill for possible amendments to the constitution. It was inaugurated January 11, 2010. After going around the whole country and holding meetings with Ghanaians in some countries around the world, the Commission submitted its report to the government December 20, 2011.
While the government has accepted some of the recommendations in the 1000 page report, it has disagreed with some of them.
Speaking at a media interaction in Accra Monday August 13, 2012, the Minister of Information, Fritz Baffour says for the purposes of the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations that have been accepted, the government will soon announce a five-member implementation committee to facilitate the process of amending the 1992 Constitution in accordance with Chapter 25 of the 1992 Constitution which deals with amendments to the Constitution.
By granting the Statistical Service independent status, it will be impossible for any government to fire the Statistician-General at will, as it happened in the case of the former Government Statistician, Dr. Grace Bediako, who was fired from her job while she was onboard a plane from Cape Town January 2012 after she had attended the 3rd Africa Statistics Commission Conference in South Africa, which she also chaired.
The development also has the potential to empower the Statistical Service and place it as an important sector in the country’s develoment efforts.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi