Ruling on CEOs will reduce winner-takes-all politics – Martin Kpebu

The Executive Director for the Human Rights and Governance Centre, Martin Kpebu, has observed that the Supreme Court’s ruling, stopping the dismissal of appointed public sector Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) by incoming governments, will likely reduce the winner-takes-all political culture in the country.

He noted that CEOs must be allowed to complete their terms in office as spelt out in their contracts, which may lower the political tension in the country and allow a new president to focus on putting his cabinet together.

“Once the president comes in, he doesn’t have the right to sack all the appointees, heads of these statutory corporations, it means that, at least you will have persons who belong to other political parties in office for a longer period, in essence, this will be a drastic reduction of winner-takes-all challenge,” Mr Kpebu stressed.

In June 2018, the president sacked four top officials of some state institutions, the removal of heads of public corporations as a result of a change of government has been declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

According to the court, the appointments of such public service offices were governed by Article 195 of the constitution, the removal of such public service officers, the court held, must be done in accordance with the terms and conditions of their contract of engagement or it must be justified, as stipulated in Article 191 of the constitution.

By the decision, the Supreme Court has repealed the section of the Presidential (Transition) Act 2012 (Act 845) which terminated the appointments of the Chief Executive Officers or Director-Generals of public corporations, statutory boards and authorities upon the assumption of office of a new president.-citinewsroom.com