Ghana Gets First Female Speaker

January 20-A retired Justice of the Supreme Court; the highest court of Ghana has made history, as she has been elected the first female Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament.
Mrs Justice Joyce Bamford-Addo’s achievement becomes an accomplishment worth celebrating by Ghanaian women after various years of the struggle for gender equality and emancipation for women from all sorts of abuse and marginalization.
In this position, Mrs Bamford-Addo, 71 is the third highest person in the country after the President and Vice President.
She was worn in by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood who also made history some few years ago by heading Ghana’s Judiciary.
This means that currently, two arms of the country’s government that is the Legislature and Judiciary are now being run by women.
The Speaker of the fifth Parliament of the Fourth Republic was elected unopposed and succeeds Mr Ebenezer Sekyi Hughes, in a Parliament of 230 representatives.
Mrs Bamford-Addo attended the Holy Child Secondary School in Cape Coast, at the capital of the Central region.
She trained as a lawyer in the United Kingdom and practiced briefly in London and relocated to Ghana.
She joined the Attorney General’s Department in Ghana as a State Attorney in 1963 and rose to become the Director of Public Prosecution in 1986.
Between 1991 and 2004 she served as Supreme Court Judge.
She also served on various boards including the Legal Aid Board and the Judicial Council.
In 1992, she served as a Deputy Speaker of the Consultative Assembly and retired from public service in October 2004, having served as a practicing lawyer for 43 years and as a judge of the Supreme Court for 13 years.
With this worth of experience, it is ample testimony that she won the seat not based on just the mere fact that she is a woman given undue advantage but based on her competence.
Chapter ten of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, states there shall be a Speaker of Parliament who shall be elected by the members of Parliament from among persons who are members of Parliament or who are qualified to be elected as members of Parliament.
The Speaker will however be expected to vacate his or her office if he becomes a Minister of State or a Deputy Minister, or if he resigns from office by writing signed by him and addressed to the Clerk to Parliament; or if any circumstances arise that, if he were not Speaker, would disqualify him for election as a member of Parliament.
It also says that the Speaker will also be expected to vacate the position if he or she is removed from office by a resolution of Parliament supported by the votes of not less than three-quarters of all the members of Parliament.
The constitutions also requires person elected to the office of Speaker to before entering upon the duties of his office, take and subscribe before Parliament the oath of allegiance and the Speaker's oath set out in the Second Schedule to this Constitution.
On emoluments, the Speaker will however receive such salary and allowances, and on retirement, such retiring awards as may be determined in accordance with article 71 of this Constitution.
The salary and allowances payable to the Speaker and any retiring awards payable to him on retirement shall be charged on state fund called the Consolidated Fund.
The salary and other allowances payable to the Speaker shall not be varied to his disadvantage during his tenure of office.
The Speaker will have two Deputy Speakers of Parliament who shall be elected by the members of Parliament from among the members of Parliament; and both of who shall not be members of the same political party
In previous years, gender activists and women groups have called for the inclusion of women and some have even proposed quota systems that would ensure fair representation of women in parliament.
This have failed, as some critics say women were calling for their inclusion not based on competence but just for the sake of inclusion.
Before Ghana’s elections in December last year, the names of some women emerged as potential candidates to be nominated as running mates to support flag bearers of the major political parties.
The running mates, according to the country’s constitution automatically become the vice president of the Republic when the political party wins the elections.
It therefore came as a big surprise and disappointment at the same time to gender activists who taught the battle had been won when the parties announced male names as their vice presidential candidates.
Although the battle had not been totally won yet, women are hoping that with time they would find their rightful place in the world.
Gradually the trend is changing as girl child education is on the increase in the country.
Through the intervention of previous government’s, many policies have been introduced to ensure that more girls go to school and stay in school.
This include the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education programme introduced over 20 years ago, to ensure that all citizens had at least basic education, the Capitation Grant initiated by the former administration led by ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor which provided grants of three dollars to each pupil every academic year to pay for tuition and a school feeding programme which provided free lunch for pupils in basic schools.
Ghana’s basic education begins with a two- year nursery and kindergarten education, six years of primary education and three years of junior high school.
It was later realized that the campaign, which started as girl child education, must be given a deeper focus as most girls dropped out of school due to teenage pregnancy, early marriage, traditional beliefs that women were home managers and therefore belonged to the kitchen among others.
Thank God that eventually, females are outnumbering the males in most educational institutions in Ghana and are performing better.
But the challenge now is how to pursue higher academic laurels to especially the Masters and PhD levels.
Due to their feminine societal roles, most of them cannot afford to let go of their marital pride and therefore abandon education to cater for their families.
Ghanaian women salute Mrs Bamford-Addo and look forward to more of such accomplishment.
We hope this is just the beginning of real hope for womanhood.
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