Parliament voted and the President signed a bill prohibiting the state from paying compound interest on transactions conducted into on her behalf by public personnel.
The Contracts (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Act 1114), introduced by the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame in 2023, was enacted by Parliament in July 2023 but was not delivered to the President for his approval until March 5, 2024, when he duly assented to it on March 8.
According to the Attorney-General of Ghana, the law aims to discourage public servants from entering into contracts with high interest rates, particularly compound interest, which results in massive financial losses for the state.
This significant modification to the Contracts Act was inspired by observations he made in different actions in which he represented the state in large judgement debt instances.
Most of the gargantuan claims against the state, he observed, were a result of the accumulation of compound interest which was usually levied and awarded by the courts. As a result of the latest amendment
to the Contracts Act (Act 1114), public officers are prohibited from entering into a contract on behalf of the state in which the rate of interest is stipulated as compound interest.
In another development, a Bill known as the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) (Amendment) Bill, also sponsored by the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, has been laid in Parliament. The bill was approved by Cabinet on February 2, 2024.
On Thursday, March 14, 2024, the bill was laid in Parliament by Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, underwent the first reading and was immediately referred to the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs to consider.
The bill introduces substantial
reform of the criminal procedure laws of this country, with the ultimate objective of speeding up the adjudication of criminal cases.
The new measures proposed include scrapping trials on indictment except where the offence is punishable by death as enjoined under the Constitution or other substantive law, provision for trials to proceed where an accused person is not personally present in court and provision for day-to-day trial of all criminal cases except where same is impracticable.
The bill also restricts interlocutory appeals only after a determination by the trial court of a submission of no case and provides for the examination of witnesses by video conferencing.
The bill also seeks to reform the jury trial system by reducing the list of exemptions from jury service, changing the composition of the jury (by addition of alternate jurors) and many other matters.
The Attorney-General is optimistic that these measures will significantly modernise criminal justice administration in the country and bring it in line with practices in more advanced democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and called on members of the public, the Bar and all stakeholders interested in the administration of justice to throw their full weight behind the bill for its swift passage by Parliament into law
