Petroleum bills and arrest safeguards lead the legal agenda

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Energy has said it will scrutinise the policy requiring local oil refineries to pay in US dollars for Ghana’s crude oil, amid concerns that the arrangement is imposing additional foreign exchange pressure on domestic refining.

The committee is expected to engage the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and other stakeholders when Parliament resumes in October this year, to examine whether the current payment arrangement was appropriate for a local refining industry that sells petroleum products largely in cedis or not.

The Chairman of the committee, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, announced this last Tuesday when the committee inspected the Sentuo Oil Refinery in Tema as part of its parliamentary oversight activities.

“I can tell you on authority that when we return to Parliament in October, there are two bills that will be coming before us — the National Petroleum Authority Bill and the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill.

“We will be looking at them, particularly this issue of how a local product that is sold on the local market is treated.

I can assure you that when we resume in October, we will look at the matter and consider what needs to be done,” he said.

The proposed scrutiny places the foreign currency requirement at the centre of a wider policy debate over how the nation can retain more value from its crude resources, while building a sustainable domestic refining industry.

It follows concerns raised by management of Sentuo Oil Refinery that having to source US dollars to purchase locally produced crude creates an additional foreign exchange burden, although the refinery processes the crude locally and sells its refined products on the domestic market.

Mr Bedzrah said the committee would consider the position of the NPA alongside concerns from refinery operators before determining what parliamentary action might be required.

The issue has already received presidential attention. In August this year, President John Dramani Mahama directed the Minister of Energy and Green Transition, Dr John Abdulai Jinapor, to reconsider the existing arrangement and explore the possibility of allowing the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and Sentuo to pay for the nation’s indigenous crude in cedis.

Mr Bedzrah said strengthening domestic refining capacity was essential to reducing the nation’s dependence on imported petroleum products and retaining more economic value from the country’s crude.

The Ranking Member of the committee, George Kwame Aboagye, said the government and local refineries needed to work together to remove policy and operational constraints threatening the sustainability of domestic refining.

He said sector policies should support efficient refinery operations and competitiveness, while avoiding unnecessary costs that could ultimately affect consumers.

The Executive Chairman and President of Sentuo Group, Xu Ningquan, also urged the committee to help in reviewing the dollar-payment arrangement to reduce foreign exchange pressure and improve the operating environment for local refineries.

The International Business and Coordination Director of Sentuo Group, Mr Samson Deen, also called for closer government-industry collaboration to address foreign exchange and crude supply challenges to enable local refineries to compete more effectively.

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A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Legal Team, Enoch Anhwere Afoakwa, has reported an alleged assault involving an Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) officer to the police following a confrontation at the Accra High Court.

The incident occurred on Wednesday, September 23, shortly after Manhyia South Member of Parliament Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah had appeared in court as legal counsel for senior nursing officer Salomey Awitty Baffoe.

The confrontation followed an attempt by EOCO officials to take the MP into custody. The attempted arrest was resisted, resulting in a physical altercation involving some of the lawyers and officers at the court premises.

Mr Afoakwa says he was subsequently issued a police medical form and proceeded to a hospital for examination and medical attention. He is expected to submit the medical documentation and other relevant material to the police as part of his complaint.

“The lady punched me in my face. What did I do to have received that kind of a punch in my face? As a lawyer, I am looking at the options available but once the incident happened, I made an official complaint to the police,” he said.

The development has added to growing public discussion over the circumstances surrounding the attempted arrest of the Manhyia South MP and the procedures law enforcement agencies are expected to follow when seeking to take a serving legislator into custody.

Speaking on Channel One TV on Saturday, September 26, Mr Afoakwa said he had formally reported the alleged assault to the police and had been given a medical form for hospital assessment.

“They have issued to me the police medical form and I have attended to the hospital for them to take care of me to observe and examine me. I will follow up and tender everything to the police and let the police decide what to do next,” he said.

The police complaint is expected to provide another avenue for the circumstances surrounding the alleged assault to be examined as the broader dispute over the attempted arrest continues.

Two students of Ada Senior High Technical School (ADA SHTS) have been convicted by the Ada West District Court after pleading guilty to charges arising from an assault involving a fellow student.

Oscar Amemasor, 20, and Emmanuel Senunya, 18, were convicted on charges of assault and abetment of assault following an incident which occurred in February 2026 and was later captured on video and circulated on social media.

The court ordered the two students to sign a 12-month bond to be of good behaviour. With the condition imposed by the court, the students were allowed to return home after the case was brought to an end.

The prosecution told the court that Amemasor assaulted the victim with a metal bar, while Senunya was seen holding a cutlass during the incident.

The case had attracted public attention after footage of the incident emerged on social media, prompting legal proceedings against the two students.

Speaking to Citi FM after the proceedings, lawyer for the students, Enock Teye Sewornu, said the decision to change their pleas was taken after considering the circumstances of the case and what was in the best interest of the students.

He said the resolution was particularly significant because both students had recently received their results and were preparing to continue their education at the university.

“Fortunately for us, today we brought the case to an end. After looking at the matter holistically, they changed their plea, and they’ve taken the plea again, and they have pleaded guilty to the offence of assault and then abetment of crime,” he said.

Mr Sewornu said the court’s decision had brought relief to the students and their parents, allowing them to move forward with their education.

“So this comes as a great relief to them and their parents, so that they’ll be able to go back to school,” he added.

The Minister of Labour, Employment and Job Creation, Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum, has pledged to work with the National Labour Commission (NLC) to strengthen its operations and ensure that labour disputes are resolved fairly and, as much as possible, without recourse to the courts.

He said the ministry would work with the commission to address its staffing, financial, regional and infrastructure challenges to make it more accessible to workers and employers.

Mr Agyekum made the pledge when he paid a working visit to the NLC in Accra last Wednesday.

He said the NLC had an important role to play in maintaining a harmonious labour environment through dialogue, negotiation and mediation.

“The reason why I’m saying this is I read your mission statement, and I read your vision, and I think that is the way we should go. We should dialogue. We should negotiate,” he said.

The minister said the ministry was ready to work with the commission to achieve measurable results and improve the resolution of complaints brought before it.

He said everyone who appeared before the commission should be given a fair hearing, regardless of who lodged the complaint or was the subject of it.

The minister said efforts should be made to resolve labour disputes at the commission rather than allow them to proceed to court.

He said the NLC had accumulated 21 years of experience in handling labour disputes, providing an opportunity for the institution to learn from past cases and improve its processes.

Mr Agyekum said the ministry would work with the commission to identify and address challenges affecting its effectiveness.

The minister said the government would have to consider expanding the commission’s presence in the northern part of the country to make its services more accessible.

He said the distance people had to travel to access the commission could discourage workers from pursuing legitimate complaints.

He said the ministry would engage the Minister of Finance on the financial challenges confronting the commission and explore ways to strengthen its operations.

Mr Agyekum said an additional office in the north could help bring the commission’s services closer to people who otherwise might have to travel long distances.

The Executive Secretary of the NLC, Dr Bernice Welbeck, said the commission received an average of 550 complaints a year involving between 750,000 and one million complainants cumulatively.

She said the commission used facilitation, mediation, arbitration and adjudication to settle industrial disputes.

Dr Welbeck said disputes arising from the termination and dismissal of employees accounted for a large proportion of the cases handled by the commission. She said the NLC, which had been in existence for 21 years, currently had four regional offices in Tema, Kumasi, Takoradi and Bono, although the Bono office was not fully operational because of staffing constraints.

Dr Welbeck said staffing remained one of the major challenges of the commission.

She said while the commission was expected to have 147 personnel across the head office and four regional offices, it was currently operating with fewer than 50 staff.

She said some staff had exited through resignation or death and although clearance had been obtained from the Public Services Commission to replace some of them, financial clearance was still outstanding.

Dr Welbeck also drew attention to inadequate office and hearing space at the commission.

She said the situation reduced the number of hearings that could be conducted and sometimes required industrial relations officers to use their offices for facilitation.

She said some offices accommodated three or four people, resulting in overcrowding that had forced some staff to occupy emergency exits, an issue raised during health and safety audits.

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Ghana's constitutional reform process has moved from consultation to implementation.

Among the proposals attracting the most attention is the government's plan to cap Parliament at 300 members.

The existing 276 constituency seats would remain, with 24 additional seats allocated through proportional representation for women, persons with disabilities and young people.

This is potentially an important step. But the real question is no longer whether proportional representation should be introduced but how it will be designed.

Ghana runs a first-past-the-post electoral system, and that fact matters more than it might first appear.

In a first-past-the-post system, each constituency produces a single winner, and party gatekeeping, incumbency and the cost of competition tend to reproduce whoever already holds power.

Affirmative action measures such as party quotas, financial concessions, and encouragement to run can shift outcomes only gradually within that architecture, because they still depend on parties choosing to nominate and support women in winnable seats. Ghana's experience under the Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) Act, 2024 (Act 1121) illustrates the importance of moving from commitments on paper to mechanisms that produce measurable representation.

This is precisely why the government's proposal deserves credit. Under a first-past-the-post system, reserved seats allocated outside constituency competition are one of the few mechanisms that can guarantee rather than merely encourage representation. Affirmative action reshapes incentives, whereas reserved seats directly guarantee outcomes.

Countries that use proportional list systems can build gender balance into the list itself. Ghana, working within a predominantly constituency-based system, does not have that option available to it in the same way, which is exactly why a dedicated PR component for the 24 seats matters.

Ghana needs both affirmative action and reserved seats, but they are not substitutes for one another, and the White Paper is right to treat the 24 seats as a distinct lever rather than folding the problem back into affirmative action alone.

That said, a mechanism designed to guarantee representation only works if its internal rules do so as well.

If women, persons with disabilities and young people are simply placed within one pool of 24 seats without clear allocation rules, women's representation could remain uncertain.

Groups that have historically been excluded from political power should not be placed in competition with one another, with the representation of any one group left dependent on political bargaining among the rest.

The implementation framework must, therefore, contain clear, enforceable gender guarantees not as a special favour, but because women make up roughly half (50.7 per cent) of Ghana's population, and their representation in Parliament is a matter of democratic legitimacy, not interest-group accommodation.

The design should also reinforce Act 1121 rather than operate alongside it as a separate initiative.

If party lists are ultimately part of the model, the rules governing those lists will be decisive.

Gender-balanced or alternating lists can prevent women from being placed in positions where they are unlikely to obtain seats; transparent nomination and allocation procedures will be equally important.

The process must also account for the fact that women are not a homogeneous group.

Young women, women with disabilities and women from marginalised communities can face overlapping barriers that a single, undifferentiated quota may not address.

The independent study the government has proposed should not be treated as a technical exercise conducted behind closed doors.

It should examine the likely gender impact of different models, the relationship to Act 1121, and the implications for regional representation and electoral integrity with meaningful input from women's rights organisations, women political leaders and aspirants, persons with disabilities, political parties, electoral experts and civil society.

Representation must also be meaningful, not merely numerical. Members entering Parliament through proportional representation must carry the same constitutional status, legislative opportunities and institutional support as constituency MPs.

The goal is not a second tier of legislators, but a Parliament that better reflects the country it serves.

Public education will also matter; therefore, constitutional reform cannot succeed if citizens do not understand what is being proposed.

Before any referendum, Ghanaians should have clear, evidence-based information about how the 24 seats will work, who can participate, and what the reform means for democratic representation.

GenCED supports the direction but calls for enforceable gender guarantees, transparent allocation rules and meaningful public participation in the design process.

Ghana has an opportunity to move beyond asking whether women are participating in politics, and to ask instead whether our institutions are designed to make that participation possible.

Proportional representation, deliberately and transparently designed, can be that instrument.

But under a first-past-the-post system, the design is not a technical afterthought, but it is the substance of the reform.

The writer is Executive Director, Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED)

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The landlord and sectional heads of Tumu in the Sissala East Municipality have given owners of structures along some roads in Tumu a two-week ultimatum to relocate to pave the way for the construction of those roads.

The directive affected buildings and stores located along the Tumu roundabout towards the Loe Road, where construction was expected to begin soon.

The initiative was to improve cross-border transportation of goods and services between Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Baba Tommy Kanton, the Landlord, gave the ultimatum in Tumu during a meeting with the affected people.

He commended President John Mahama and the Member of Parliament for Sissala East, Isaah Mohammed Bataglia, for including the Tumu-Burkina Faso road in the government’s road infrastructure programme.

He also commended Mawums Construction Limited for its good work and appealed to the government to award the remaining town road projects to the company, describing it as hardworking and ready for the job.

Baba Kanton stressed that his intervention was for the development of the area and not for votes because he was not a politician.

He, therefore, cautioned the MP and other government officials against interfering with the contractor’s work, as political intervention could be motivated by attempts to win favour with residents.

Baba Kanton acknowledged that some affected residents might plead for more time but urged them not to do so, insisting that he would not intervene and would allow the area to be developed.

Speaking at the gathering, the MP for Sissala East, Isaah Mohammed Bataglia, assured affected people that the road project would proceed in accordance with the landlord’s directive.

He acknowledged the difficulties associated with the relocation exercise but said the broader development needs of the municipality had to be considered.

He, however, said he would work closely with the contractor to minimise the impact of the exercise on residents.

Alhaji YY, one of the affected residents, appealed to the landlord to consider granting residents an additional three days if they were unable to vacate within the stipulated two-week period.

He said though the residents were unhappy about losing parts of their properties, they supported the landlord’s vision of developing the area.

Alhaji YY said he was born 27 in one of the affected houses, which is more than 70 years old, but acknowledged that he had no option but to give up part of the structure to make way for the road construction.

The Power of Worship International (POWI), led by Head Pastor Prophet Daniel Amoateng, has helped with the payment of outstanding court fines for 23 inmates from the Nsawam Medium Security Prison.

For many of the minor offenders, their inability to pay court-imposed fines led to prolonged incarceration.

Recognising the systemic challenge, which was a contributory factor to congestion in the prison, Prophet Daniel Amoateng and POWI stepped in to offer help for their societal reintegration.

Beyond settling the financial obligations required for their immediate release, the church extended its support to ensure a seamless transition back into society. The beneficiaries were treated to a special dinner hosted by the ministry, providing a warm atmosphere of fellowship, dignity, and encouragement before returning to their communities.

POWI covered the transportation costs for all 20 individuals to reach their respective destinations safely and has also offered to provide each released inmate with financial seed capital to start life afresh, empowering them to establish small enterprises or secure livelihoods without resorting to circumstances that led to their initial imprisonment.

Speaking on the initiative, Prophet Amoateng emphasized that the gesture aligns with the core mandate of the Gospel: extending love, mercy, and tangible support to the vulnerable and disenfranchised.

By addressing both the spiritual and socio-economic needs of the beneficiaries, POWI continues to set an inspiring benchmark for religious organizations playing active roles in social reform.

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