Two former chairpersons of transition teams of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have expressed disgust at the animosity and bickering between the two major parties that characterised the 2008/09 transition process.
Professor Fred T. Sai, the Chairman of the NPP Transition Team in 2000/2001 and Mr P.V. Obeng, who chaired the NDC side of the Transition process in 2008/09, have therefore called for the Presidential Transition Bill currently before Parliament to take into account, the need to protect public office holders from being �pushed� out of office with a change of administration.
The two were sharing their perspectives in Accra on Wednesday at a seminar organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) to give the personalities a platform to reflect on their experiences, and engage the public in finding solutions to the flaws that occurred in transitions.
The seminar which was on the topic �Reflections on issues in Political and Administrative Transitions: Perspectives of former Chairpersons of Transitions Teams� was the second in the series of IDEG�s 2012 elections programme.
Setting the tone for the discussion, Professor Sai said the NPP upon winning the 2000 elections had no idea of any transitional arrangement to usher it into office until the NPP received a letter from then Vice-President, Prof J.E.A. Mills� office, informing the party of moves of a transition.
�The NPP absolutely had no idea of the need to form a transition because that was the very first time Ghana was experiencing a smooth transfer of power from one political party to another,� he said.
According to Prof. Sai, in the 2000 transition, it was realised that functionaries of the then party in power were occupying government bungalows which, for him was wrong because those people were not using their bungalows as public officials appointed by the government.
But attempts to evict them, he indicated, caused a lot of uproar which made it appear as though the occupants of the buildings were being witched hunt.
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