President and Chief Executive Officer of Groupe Nduom, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has challenged legal practitioners to help shape the ability of the country to improve the lot of Ghanaians.

Dr. Nduom was delivering a goodwill message on the theme: “The Role of the Legal Community in National Development,” at the 42nd Law Week celebration of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana, Legon, yesterday in Accra.

Juxtaposing law and national development, Dr. Nduom said law together with other professions such as medicine, teaching, management consulting, architecture, engineering etc., have all not met the expectation of Ghanaians. And though Dr. Nduom admitted that some of the professionals have made very good contributions to the nation’s development, he indicated that the country should have been far ahead in terms of development.

“Some of the professionals have made very good contributions to our nation but we are not where we should have been as a people.

…As law students, you are the future of your profession in Ghana. Students in general should be open to new ideas. So I want to point out specific areas where you and the legal profession can support national development. When you succeed, Ghana will become a great and strong nation and its people will be prosperous,” stressed the GN president.

In the opinion of the GN president, the burden to cause a change and steer the country onto a better path to prosperity and a good life falls on every Ghanaian.

He wondered why there are lawyers in the country, yet according to him, certain things were not going right since the promulgation of 1992 Constitution.

For instance, the business magnate cited a situation where the 1992 Constitution was crafted to create a constitutional, elected presidency where one person rules over everything including the legislature both national and local.

He further wondered why there are lawyers in the country but could not compel the two political parties that have ruled this country since 1992 to implement the Free, Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) policy as enshrined in the constitution.

What surprised him was the fact that, the two political parties have good lawyers in their folds.

“There are lawyers with big, big names in those two political parties,” Dr. pointed out.

He quoted Chapter 6/Section 38 Sub-section 2 of the 1992 Constitution to support his stance where it states that, “the government shall within two years after Parliament first meets after the coming into force of this Constitution draw up the programme for implementation within the following ten years for the provision of Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education" (FCUBE).

Dr. Nduom went on to ask where lawyers in this country were when someone received GHS51 million from the state and was asked to pay back without interest even though the person who got the money demanded that interest be paid to him at every turn?

“Where were the lawyers when the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice were coupled and named in the Constitution”? Dr Nduom asked. To this end, Dr. Nduom called on Ghanaians to join the crusade to enforce what is in the 1992 Constitution and change the ones inimical to the interest of Ghanaians. That, he believed, would put law and national development on the same level. Dr. Nduom on behalf of Groupe Nduom presented a cheque of One Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC1,000) to the Faculty of Law towards its 42nd Week celebration.