Ranking Member on Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has revealed that the United States’ State Department report on human rights standards is not picking on Ghana alone.
Mr Ablakwa indicated that the report is by no means intended to make mockery of Ghana. He noted that the report is rather a United States constitutional requirement and not borne out of malice.
“It is important for us to put the report in the right perspective. The United States of America is not picking on Ghana alone. The United States of America has been putting out these Country Human Rights report since 1961 when it passed the Foreign Assistance Act and then when it passed the Trade Act of 1974.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
The North Tongu legislator highlighted that per the US laws, it is a requirement that countries they often assist, and countries that sit with the United Nations and work and collaborate with it,“must carry out these human rights assessment every year”.
“The reason why it is important particularly for countries they assist under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 is because, the citizens of the United States of America want to be sure that particularly when their government says that they are investing in governance institutions, they are seeking to as it were, enhance the governance architecture, the rule of law, and all of those values, those ethos that the international community subscribes to, they want to be sure that there is value for money, and that you are not pumping tax payers’ money, hard earned tax payers’ money and there are no results.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
Ablakwa defends US State Department report
Mr Ablakwa opined that Ghana is not the only country out of 198 countries that has been assessed in the recent report. As such, the purported notions that the United States picked out Ghana to ridicule is unfounded.
“Once this context is explained, you cannot therefore conclude that the United States is picking on Ghana or probably has some axe to grind with Ghana; it is because their laws allows them to do this and it’s also some peer review mechanism.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
Ghana, Mr Ablakwa noted, is at liberty to equally write a peer review on human rights issues in America. He explained that the peer review mechanism is one which has been welcomed over the years as a means of assessing the performance of countries and governments across the world.
“So, I do not want us to at this point play the we vs them, you know, America trying to be a a big boy, wanting to dictate to us, wanting to tell us how to go about our work.”
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
The latest Country Report on Human Rights Practiced highlight issues including; denial of fair public trial, corruption and lack of transparency in government, arbitrary deprivation of life and other unlawful or politically motivated killings. The others are freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media and elections and political participation.
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