A private legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah says the President must correct his actions by using the right procedure to remove the Managing Director of the Electricity Company (ECG) of Ghana, Rev. Ing, Hutton-Mensah.
“…where the law is broken in this instance, we all must all ensure that this does not happen again because the law is the law,” he said.
He said although the legal implications of the President’s action may seem insignificant, the law has been broken and must be fixed.
[contextly_sidebar id=”ctzAVkQtTLTRuqwIEOBk18DTljCbfD7A”]He therefore recommended that the President must be forced to “revoke the re-assignment, call a meeting and sack him as Director [on the board] and get the board to remove him from his managing position.”
The President, John Mahama two weeks ago removed Rev. Ing, Hutton-Mensah as Managing Director of ECG and ordered him to go to the Energy Commission for re-assignment.
This angered the workers of the company who were of the view that their boss had been treated unfairly.
They staged series of demonstrations to demand the re-instatement of Rev. Hutton-Mensah.
President Mahama was also accused of breaking the law by unilaterally removing the ECG boss.
However, the President on Thursday clarified that the expertise of the ex-ECG boss will be needed at the newly created Ministry of Power; hence, his decision to re-assign him.
Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, Ace Ankomah pointed out that when the Electricity Corporation of Ghana was changed into Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) over 20 years ago, “the rules changed.”
“It is publicly owned but it is a company…the instance where the President or the Executive or the government could decide on executive positions and placements within, from and to the organization should have ended by law,” he explained.
According to him, governments over the years “have failed or refused or neglected to recognize that the rules of the game changed when we converted those corporations into companies. We have ECG, SIC and GCB. They are not all what they used to be.”
Mr. Ankomah acknowledged that the state is the sole shareholder of the company but it only has the powers to remove a member of the Board of Directors and not the Managing Director or even the messenger of the company.
“The gentleman is not the employee of the government…executive positions and executive placements are spelt out in a specific provision in the regulation of the company and it is vested not in anybody else but the board of directors.
The Managing Director serves on the board and as a Manager of company so the shareholder can remove him from the board then the board members can remove him from the managing role,” he intimated.
Ace Ankomah advised that if the government is unwilling to let the rules governing the operations of state corporations transformed into companies to work, “then don’t play company law, then don’t convert your business entities into companies because if you do, these rules will affect you and these rules will bind you.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana