[ 2012-09-10 ]

Blame Parliament for Delay in Passing CI 78 -PPP
The PPP has been deeply concerned about the delay
in passing the now CI 78 which seeks to create the
new forty-five (45) constituencies. The
controversy and the delay could have been avoided
if parliament as a collective body had approached
the issue with a lot more diligence and without
the unnecessary partisanship displayed by the
House of Parliament. The mess is purely a
governance issue and the lack of finesse in taking
decisions in the national interest.

Instead of spending time discussing serious issues
such as 1) reforming the Constitution to simply
limit the number of constituencies that can be
created or 2) working with the EC to implement a
form of proportional representation as suggested
by former Deputy Chairman of the Electoral
Commission (EC), David Adenze Kanga, which would
decrease the incumbency abuse of creating
districts and constituencies as pre-election
gifts, Parliament is dragging its feet and letting
Ghana down as usual. Ghanaians should not waste
their votes on Parliamentarians like those who
continually refuse to work for progress in Ghana
and deliver nothing but disappointments.

The PPP does not understand why the Committee on
Subsidiary Legislation waited till the last three
days before the original CI 73 could mature before
they raised issues with the fact that the document
was fraught with mistakes. If the Committee had
approached the issue with a sense of urgency, we
will not be having some sections of the
population, civil society and political parties
raising the argument of timing. In our opinion the
detection and the correction thereof of the errors
could have been done in a matter of one week after
the document was laid. How come it took three
weeks for the Committee to report on the errors on
such an important national exercise such as
creating constituencies?

The PPP considers the numerous withdrawals, the
inappropriate numbering of the document and the
subsequent walk outs by the minority group as a
matter of lack of due diligence on the part of
parliament. How come the gazette notification in
compliance with Article 11(7) (b) of the
Constitution relating to the laying of CI's
escaped the attention of the Majority Leader, the
Leader of the House of Parliament, before the
document was re-laid?

The delay and the controversy are completely
unwarranted and the PPP believes that our
representatives in parliament could do better than
this. Isn't it instructive that all NPP minority
members have a different position from all the NDC
majority members of parliament? This conduct and
attitude on the part of members of parliament is
inimical to progress and doing things in the
national interest with a sense of urgency.

The PPP calls all Ghanaians to be awake and elect
into parliament progressive and independent-minded
members of parliament who would approach
decision-making in the House from the perspective
of the National Interest.

We are Awake!
Kofi Asamoah-Siaw
National Secretary, PPP

Source - PPP Communications

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