The Ghana Association of Banks CEO, John Awuah, has challenged the widely held view that constitutional reform is the key to solving Ghana’s developmental woes.
He insists instead that what the country truly needs is a transformation of values and enforcement of existing laws.
In a thought-provoking post on LinkedIn, Mr Awuah argued that Ghana’s real enemy is not the Constitution, but the entrenched culture of impunity, corruption, and weak law enforcement.
“While I do not oppose the ongoing work on Constitutional Review,” he wrote, “I am of the firm view that the Constitution is perhaps the least of the challenges confronting Ghana or our democracy.”
He pointed out that some nations without even a codified constitution have succeeded in building strong institutions and high-functioning democracies by relying on “laws, conventions, legal precedents, and traditions that have evolved.”
For him, the issue is not the document but what people choose to do with it.
“Our leaders who want to do good can do a lot of good with the constitution we have,” Mr Awuah said.
“The Constitution does not support corruption, yet we are corrupt. It has provisions for dealing with the dispensation of justice, yet we see a lot of injustice. It abhors crime, yet depending on who you are, you can be a walking criminal on our streets.”
With rising calls for constitutional amendments, the banking CEO urged Ghanaians not to fall into the trap of blaming the Constitution for systemic failures.
“We can have a Constitution that is written by God, and a bad leader will have clauses to pursue personal interest and misrule,” he stated bluntly.
What Ghana needs, he emphasised, is a fundamental reset in values.
“Values are guided and nurtured with the strict application of the laws we already have.”
He cited examples from developed countries where citizens are not inherently more virtuous, but behave appropriately because the system punishes wrongdoing consistently.
“They don’t enjoy paying rent or loans,” he said, “but the consequences of not doing so—like being blocked from the financial system—deter them. They fear corruption because their laws don’t respect personalities. The laws know only the law.”
According to John Awuah, impunity has become so normalised in Ghana that those who try to do the right thing are often mocked or vilified.
“We have the reverse law syndrome in Ghana. The wrong is now right, and the people in the wrong have more strength and power, especially if they have managed to amass wealth through that wrongdoing.”
He warned against scapegoating the Constitution for the country’s moral and institutional collapse.
“So don’t paint our Constitution black and make it the cause of our woes—we are our own demons. A lot of good can be done with a bad constitution, and a lot of bad can be done with a good constitution.”
In his final verdict, he listed Ghana’s top three problems as: “1) Corruption, 2) Corruption; 3) Corruption.”
