The Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Joseph Whittal, has revealed that the Commission does not have the necessary funds to operate as it should.
Mr Whittal noted that for some years now, CHRAJ has been underfunded which has led to debt payment delays, hindering the operation of the Commission in the process. He explained that the Commission has sent some money to the regions for them to operate whilst “we wait on maybe 3rd quarter and that may bring something” meaningful.
Mr Whittal stated that despite a budget allocation of 45 million cedis, only GHC2 million has been released for operations and GHC9 million for salaries and compensation.
“… As at now when I check the figures, we don’t have up to 2 million for the year for goods and service. We have a very paltry sum for Capex and it’s not even been released yet. So, that is the situation we find ourselves.”
Joseph Whittal
Mr Whittal indicated that the Commission has some outstanding debts to pay to creditors who are on its neck, and the lack of funds at his outfit is making it impossible for them to do so.
“On top of that you know government is a continuum, so we have made some expenditures last year that were not met because 4th quarter was not released, so we have creditors on our neck, they want to be paid and so when 3rd quarter comes I’m believing that we may have to pay them. And the rest will be what we will be using to do the work for the Commission.”
Joseph Whittal
The Commissioner for CHRAJ stated that the underfunding of the Commission undermines its ability to fully and efficiently carry out its core mandate to the vulnerable in society. He emphasized that the Commission is supposed to be the ordinary person’s go-to institution and it is also for those who cannot go to court to have issues of dispute resolved.
“And so if you do this to this institution, which the framers of the constitution actually wanted to take care of the ordinary person who cannot access any other service which is paid for, then you’re really hitting at the belly button of the vulnerable and that is why we’ve been insisting that it doesn’t take much to make this institution work.”
Joseph Whittal
Funding the Commission to work better
Mr Whittal revealed that it “doesn’t take much” to run the Commission considering the type of figures that go to certain institutions and ministries. He opined that services are also rendered by the Commission to people and it is not only about particular ministries and what they dole out.
“This is ordinary service to the ordinary person and on top of that we’re dealing with fighting corruption, fighting conflict of interest, educating people, creating prevention at the same time. So, what are we doing if we don’t resource these bodies?”
Joseph Whittal
According to Mr Whittal, in recent times, much of the Commission’s work has been “desk bound” due to the fact that there isn’t enough resource to conduct the necessary field work. He elaborated that it takes resources to buy fuel for their vehicles and motorbikes to go to the field.
“Investigation is about going out. And really going to the field to look for evidence, interview people, gather documents, come in to the office, only to write a report. If you don’t front load the investment into investigation, nobody can go to the field because it takes money to go to the field… If that doesn’t happen what we do is do the easy work which is desk bound. And when the public is insisting we have these cases, CHRAJ is delaying, unfortunately [and] it’s not the fault of CHRAJ.”
Joseph Whittal
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