Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie’s comments questioning what Ghana had been doing over the past eight years have triggered a sharp response from Ofoase-Ayirebi MP Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who has also questioned the Chief Justice’s decision to tour state-owned institutions.

The Chief Justice made the remarks on Wednesday, September 2, during a visit to the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF), where he praised the institution’s performance under the current administration.

“I must congratulate you. I mean, you have done marvellously well. See, because sometimes when we hear the things that you have done, the things that some organisations are doing now, we wonder; some of us keep wondering what really we have been doing in the past eight years,” he said.

The comment appeared to draw a comparison between the performance of state institutions under the current administration and the previous eight years of governance.

The Chief Justice had earlier visited the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), where he expressed a similar sentiment about the institution’s current operations.

“We've just come back from SSNIT, we went to SSNIT this morning, and the kind of things that we heard, and we hear, we even heard before we went there, what we were told, if you compare that to the fact that not too long ago, SSNIT was preparing to sell its prized assets like Labadi Beach Hotel, you wonder how Ghana could have sunk so low,” he said.

However, Mr Oppong Nkrumah has questioned both the Chief Justice’s tours of state-owned enterprises and the nature of some of his comments during the visits.

He described the tours as unprecedented, arguing that the Judiciary traditionally maintains a clear separation from the Executive and Legislature.

“For all the years that I have followed politics and governance, I haven’t heard of such that the Chief Justice will be touring state-owned enterprises. I haven’t heard of that before,” he said.

According to Mr Oppong Nkrumah, the Judiciary is expected to operate independently of the other arms of government.

“The Judiciary is supposed to be more or less independent. It’s an arm of government on its own; they don’t mingle with whether it’s the Legislature or the Executive,” he said.

He added that it was established practice for judges to avoid political and public engagements of that nature.

“It is a well-known, established practice that the Judiciary doesn’t mingle, so you don’t see judges going around mingling in public,” he said.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the development was particularly concerning given the Chief Justice’s comments about the performance of state institutions and the previous administration.

“So, if upon that now there are official tours that are going on, it’s bewildering, and then I find it strange to hear some of these comments being made by the Judiciary,” he said.

He described the situation as “absolutely shocking” and “unprecedented,” stressing that he had not previously seen the Judiciary become involved at that level in the affairs of state-owned institutions.