The Legality Of Ghana’s Sanitation Day

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Category: Law & Justice

Created on Wednesday, 19 November 2014 00:00

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The Legality Of Ghana’s Sanitation Day

A Comparative Study of Article 16(1)(2)(3) of the 1992 Ghana’s Constitution & “A Communal Labour– another technique of acquisition of manpower required for administrative tasks in Cameroon?” (Published in Verfassung und Recht in Übersee (VRÜ) 40 (2007)) By Professor E.H. Ngwa Nfobin, Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Dschang/Cameroon∗

ABSTRACT

The Ghana’s Sanitation Day Directive aims at addressing the country’s decades of poor sanitation and its related health hazards. It is unclear however, whether this is an interim measure or can be reasonably interpreted as a state of emergency or calamity. Article 16(2) of the 1992 Ghana Constitution provides that: “No person shall be required *to perform forced labour; (3) For the purposes of this article, “forced labour” does not include.- (a) any labour required as a result of a sentence or (b) any labour required of a member of a disciplined force or service as his duties or, in the case of a person who has conscientious objections to a service as a member of the Armed Forces of Ghana, any labour which that person is required by law to perform in place of such service (c) any labor required during any period when Ghana *is at war or in the event of an *emergency or *calamity that threatens the life and well-being of the community, to the extent that the requirement of such labour is *reasonably justifiable in the *circumstances of any situation arising or existing during that period for the purposes of dealing with the situation; or (d) *any labour reasonably required as part of normal communal or other civic obligations.”

INTRODUCTION

It is said that authority is granted to rulers or anyone in power by those over whom power is to be exercised. Neil McNaughton (2012, p6) writes that without authority, power becomes mere force. “Put simply, when we say a teacher exercises authority, for example, what is meant is that he or she has been granted power over the pupils by the head teacher and, more indirectly, by the parents and the wider community. Thus, the source of the authority allows the teacher to exercise power. In pure democracies all political authority has its source in the people…” We foresee Local Government Minister Julius Debrah’s National Sanitation Directive as genuine or a benign attempt to solve the country’s chronic sanitation problems. But Hon. Emmanuel Agyarko [2] – the MP for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency is doubtful: “Every month or every other month can never solve this sanitation problem?”