Member of Parliament for Gomoa Central, Kwame Asare Obeng, popularly known as A Plus, has rejected the Constitutional Review Committee’s proposal to extend Ghana’s presidential and parliamentary terms from four to five years.

According to him, the current four-year tenure should instead be reduced to three years, while presidential term limits should be scrapped to allow elected leaders to seek re-election as many times as voters permit.

“Extending presidential and parliamentary terms to five years is a no-no… Reduce it to three years and remove term limits so you can contest as many times as you want,” he said on the Sunrise programme on 3FM on Friday, August 14.

A Plus argued that such an arrangement could have altered Ghana’s political history, noting that former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo might still have been eligible to serve as president.

“Akufo-Addo would be president by now; I don’t support this five-year tenure proposal for presidents and parliamentarians,” he added.

His position comes after Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, announced that the government had accepted the Constitutional Review Committee’s recommendation for a five-year presidential term.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, July 30, Dr Ayine also disclosed that the committee had recommended reducing the minimum age for presidential candidates from 40 to 35 years.

“For the avoidance of doubt, this proposed amendment does not apply to the incumbent President,” he said.

The Constitutional Review Committee had argued that Ghana’s existing four-year presidential term was too short to allow governments sufficient time to implement their programmes effectively.

However, the committee did not recommend the introduction of a third term for sitting presidents.

Its Chairperson, Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, explained during the presentation of the committee’s final report on Monday, December 22, that the proposal had attracted little public support.

“We couldn’t find a place for a third term; nobody really seemed to like it, there was really no demand for it,” he said.

The committee also recommended changes to the process for appointing heads of state-owned enterprises.

On the powers of the Attorney-General, Prof Prempeh said the committee proposed transferring some of the office’s responsibilities to an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, particularly in relation to corruption cases.

He said the move would allow the Attorney-General to focus more effectively on international arbitration and major constitutional matters.

“ORAL will be done by some other body. We want to take some of the powers of the A-G and give them to an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission,” he said.

Responding to the recommendation, Dr Ayine said the government agreed with the principle behind the proposal but believed it did not require a constitutional amendment.

“The government accepts the principle in principle, but the objection does not require a constitutional amendment,” he said.