{"id":278401,"date":"2016-12-21T06:47:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T06:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=278401"},"modified":"2016-12-21T06:47:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T06:47:06","slug":"nothing-wrong-with-my-last-minute-appointment-new-chraj-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=278401","title":{"rendered":"Nothing wrong with my &#8216;last minute&#8217; appointment &#8211; New CHRAJ boss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The newly appointed Commissioner for the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Joseph Whittal, has downplayed assertions that his appointment by President John Mahama amounts to an\u00a0abuse of power.<\/p>\n<p>President John Mahama <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/12\/20\/mahama-swears-in-joseph-whittal-as-new-chraj-boss\/\">swore in<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Mr. Whittal as the new CHRAJ Commissioner barely two weeks to his handing over of power to the newly-elected New Patriotic Party government.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission had been without a substantive Commissioner for almost 12 months following the removal of the previous commissioner, Laurette Lamptey over allegations of corruption.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_278291\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-278291\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Mahama-CHRAJ-NCCE-appointment-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-278291 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Mahama-CHRAJ-NCCE-appointment-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"mahama-chraj-ncce-appointment-1\" width=\"620\" height=\"414\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-278291\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Mahama also swore into office a new director for the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Josephine Nkrumah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Despite criticism that this swearing in was done in bad faith, Mr. Whittal retorted that\u00a0&#8220;He [President Mahama] has the power as the President of the Republic of Ghana, until he exits, to appoint and this is state function. He has a performed a state function today [Tuesday].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don\u2019t see anything wrong with it. Why should anybody read anything into it, I don\u2019t have a problem with the appointment as I think it is right, it is lawful and it is legal,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mahama sued over appointment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But Lawyer Philip Addison believes the President erred as he has <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/12\/20\/mahama-sued-over-chraj-appointment\/\">filed a lawsuit<\/a><\/strong><\/span> challenging the appointment of Mr. Whittal.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit is seeking to restrain President Mahama from using his last 16 days to make the appointment.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_42817\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-42817\" style=\"width: 750px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Election-Petition-Case_ghanalive.tv_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-42817\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Election-Petition-Case_ghanalive.tv_1.jpg\" alt=\"Philip Addison\" width=\"750\" height=\"469\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Election-Petition-Case_ghanalive.tv_1.jpg 750w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Election-Petition-Case_ghanalive.tv_1-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-42817\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Philip Addison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Speaking on <strong>Eyewitness News<\/strong>, Philip Addison condemned the President&#8217;s move, arguing that the spirit of the constitution does not allow the President to make these late appointments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur position is that these appointments are clearly not in line with the letter and spirit of the constitution. The President has barely two weeks to go and he is purporting to make these major appointments to saddle an incoming government. We do not think that it is proper, we do not think that it is the proper exercise of the discretion given to him under the constitution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The newly appointed Commissioner for the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Joseph Whittal, has downplayed assertions that his appointment by President John Mahama amounts to an\u00a0abuse of power. President John Mahama swore in Mr. Whittal as the new CHRAJ Commissioner barely two weeks to his handing over of power to the newly-elected [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":278406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[3,14413,464,14414],"class_list":["post-278401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-ghana-news","tag-joseph-whittal","tag-mahama","tag-new-chraj-boss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}