Ghana

Jul
22
2020

Allowing birth certificates for voter ID would be a ‘retrograde step’ – Ghana’s Supreme Court

By Carmel Rickard

Two combined applications testing decisions of Ghana’s attorney general and related to the national elections scheduled for 7 December 2020, have been decided by that country’s Supreme Court. Determined to clean up Ghana’s voter register, the AG gazetted new regulations. Among them was the decision not to allow the old (current) voter identification cards to be used to identify people wanting to register as voters on the new, updated list.

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The decision in the case had already been announced by the court a few weeks ago, with its reasons deferred until now. Applicants in the two matters had asked that the gazetted non-inclusion of current voter identification cards and of birth certificates should be declared unconstitutional.

All seven judges who heard the matter agreed to reject this proposition.

Mar
26
2020

Chaotic land ownership records shock Ghana's supreme court

By Carmel Rickard

A recent dispute over the rightful owner of a plot of land in Ghana has led the country's highest court to ask why people who sell the same land to several buyers in fradulent deals, are not prosecuted. The judges also expressed their shock at the state of Ghana's records from which it is often impossible to tell the rightful owners of plots of land. They said such chaos, combined with uncertainty about whether property deals are valid, would deter also foreign investors.  

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The case of Dora Boateng v Mackeown Investments illustrates the incredible complexity of buying land in Ghana. It also shows the difficulties faced by the courts in sorting out claims and counterclaims about land ownership.

May
16
2019

End of the road for Ghana Bank official, sacked after taking King’s cash by cab for depositing

By Carmel Rickard

When you are summoned by His Majesty, Ghanaian King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, courtesy demands that you attend as quickly as you can. But how could London banker Mark Frank Arthur, second most senior official of Ghana International Bank, have known that the summons, via the king’s wife, would lead to his dismissal from the bank – and, he now fears, to his becoming unemployable in the financial sector?

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In August 2016 when Mark Arthur was called to “attend” His Majesty, Ghana’s King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, he was the second most senior officer in Ghana International Bank PLC. He had first started work at the bank in 1988 and had risen through the ranks since then to become an executive director of the bank as well as a member of its board of directors. And, at least until his visit to the king that morning, he had an “unblemished disciplinary and performance record.”

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