Member of the National Executive Committee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Wonder Victor Kutor, has said Ghana did no wrong in receiving deportees from the United States but argued that the procedure should have been handled differently.
“In terms of the substance, receiving the persons, there’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing wrong with saving such persons.
“If you look at the various immigration rules across the world, on humanitarian grounds, as the President rightly said, there’s absolutely nothing wrong. But I think the problem many are having is the procedure, which I kind of side with in a way,” he said on Joy Prime’s Prime Insight on Saturday, September 20.
Commenting further on the recent deportation exercise, Mr Kutor explained that while the government was right to accept the deportees, constitutional processes may have been overlooked.
“If you say memorandum of understanding does not go to Parliament, that is just a heading. What does the content state? If the content appears to be an agreement, it ought to go to Parliament in accordance with Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution,” he said.
Mr Kutor added that the title of a document is less important than its legal substance.
“The mere title of a document as a memorandum of understanding is not what matters; it’s the content. But if that memorandum of understanding appears to be an agreement, in fact, it ought to go to Parliament. When it comes to issues of law, I won’t just be speaking as a politician; I want to stick to the law,” he explained.
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He also pointed out that Parliament could have been recalled to regularise the agreement.
“Receiving the deportees, there’s no problem. But I thought that the procedure ought to have been reconsidered. Parliament has been on recess, but they can always under urgency recall Parliament and discuss this issue. I don’t think the government should have a problem going to Parliament to rectify it,” he said.