HAS THE CHAMBER REALLY BEEN DROPPED?




Ghana's Parliament has formally decided not to proceed with the proposed $200 million New Chamber construction. This happened after the revelation of the plan to construct a new chamber was met with wide public opposition. The hashtag #Dropthatchamber trended in Ghana within days after Ghanaians learnt of the plan by the Parliamentary Service Bard. The members of the public were of the view, and rightly so, that $200m could be used to solve the many challenges in our nation, from health, through education and roads. So on Monday 8th July, 2019 when it became clear that parliament has officially dropped that chamber, many were and have been excited about the victory. But is it really an everlasting victory?

Well, I am not optimistic that the suspension of this project is a permanent one. It is a matter which will come back to us again sooner or later. In the words of Bob Marley "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day". My fear is that, when the issue of the new chamber comes up again in the future, the Government would have learnt from the Communication blunders it committed with this, and they would win the public on this matter and waste our scanty resources to build a new parliamentary chamber.

I believe the only way we can put a finality to the issue of not building a new chamber in the near future is to place an upper ceiling on the number of Members of Parliament that Ghana can have. The current legal arrangements allow us to have one million MPs if the Leading political parties so wish. I will attempt to explain the legal position in the next few paragraphs below.


First of all, Article 93(1) of the 1992 constitution of Ghana says "There shall be a Parliament of Ghana which shall consist of not less than one hundred and forty elected members." This means that we know for sure that we cannot have less than 140 members of parliament at any point in time. We have however left the upper ceiling open. This makes it legal for any President to create new constituencies. A phenomenon which is very similar to gerrymandering in government.

The records show that within a time space of 11 years, Ghana has added about 75 more MPs to its number of MPs. This is almost a 40% increment within this short period of time. It has not only been done by the New Patriotic Party (NPP), but has also been done by the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Of course many will disagree with me and say I am wrong because it was the Electoral Commission which created those new constituencies. But those who understand how the law and power works will agree with me that it has always been through the manipulation of the Executive that we have created these new constituencies thus increasing the number of Members of Parliament that we have.


This is how it works. The Parliament of Ghana is known to be one that is largely controlled by the ruling president at all times due to several legal procedures in our 1992 constitution. So, the government will simply ask parliament to create new Districts as has been done in the last 16 years by President Kuffuor, President Atta mills and President Akufo Addo. Parliament will simply rely on Article 241 of the constitution and created new districts. This is what Article 241 says.


(1) For the purposes of local government, Ghana shall be deemed to have been divided into the districts in existence immediately before the coming into force of this Constitution.
(2) Parliament may by law make provision for the redrawing of the boundaries of districts or for reconstituting the districts.

As soon as parliament makes new laws to increase the number of districts, the Electoral Commission has no option than to also increase the number of constituencies in the country. That is also because, in the Local Government Act of Ghana 1993, (ACT 462), there is a clause that makes it necessary for new constituencies to be created as soon as new districts have been created. This is what the Clause 6(7) of the Local Government Act says. A person shall not be a member of more than one Assembly at any point in time. This means that if the boundary of the new district is created from an existing constituency, then a new constituency must be created so that there would not be two districts in a constituency which would mean that members of that constituency may become members of two district assemblies.

In the year 2007, President Kufour created 25 new districts which increased the number of districts in Ghana from 141 to 166. This by necessary implication increased the number of MPs from 200 to 230.

In 2012, President Mahama increased the number of districts from 166 to 216. This by necessary implication increased out MPs from 230 to 275.


In November 2017, the current government led by Nana Akufo Addo created 38 more districts in putting the total number of districts now at 254 from a previous 216. The necessary legal implication is that we need to have at least 320 more constituencies. I have estimated 320 because when we had 216 districts, we had 275 constituencies. That means, the current parliamentary chamber is already unable to accommodate the new parliament which will be constituted in 2021. The current Parliament has a seating capacity of 270. This means some 5 MPs do not have a proper seat in parliament which is why the speaker complains he is unable to see some MPs. I hope by this time, you agree with me that we have not dropped that chamber yet. Perhaps, we would be able to effectively drop that chamber if we force parliament to revise the laws that allows them to increase constituencies any time they feel the need. I believe Ghana should not have more than 200 legislators.

I hereby call on all prudent Ghanaians to start a campaign to ask government to put an upper limit on the number of MPs we can have at 200.

Thank you.


Richard Amarh
Executive Director
Progressive Peoples Party

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LAW ON DEATH INTESTATE IN RELATION TO FAMILY PROPERTY.

Many Ghanaians live in properties which they falsely believe is theirs, but upon their death, they leave their spouses with troubles and litigation. This short write up will examine a fictional fact situation and use it to explain what the law says about Death Interstate in relation to Family Property.   THE PROBLEM KWADWO MINTAH died interstate in June 2019. He had built a two-room apartment in which he lived with his beautiful wife Yaa Achaa and their 3-year-old daughter, Akosua Ahuofe. The Land was a family land which other family members had also build similar apartments and living on. In fact, Yaa Achaa had helped his husband in building by contributing financially to help him put up the structure. They wanted to stop paying rent and so they decided to build to have their own peace of mind. Two years after his death, the family of Kwadwo Mintah are asking Yaa Achaa and her daughter to vacate the building because they need it for a family member who is returning from ...
Read more

TRUTH STANDS: DECEIT CANNOT LAST FOR EVER

After watching a tension filled match on Tuesday evening which resulted in a draw, I was only expecting to hear some more news on the seemingly better result of the match between Ghana and England. Instead the, Ya Na case had taken a new turn, 15 accused persons have been acquitted and discharged. Whiles some have jubilated over the judicial decision, others are hurt and this has sparked indiscipline, lawlessness and agitations in the Tamale Metropolis. This time, the foot soldiers have not attacked a DCE. The President, the highest officer in the Land has been issued a warning to desist from entering Tamale in his ongoing nationwide tour or be lynched; the highest impudence. Hmm. Politicians they say are not truthful. Knowing the stand of President Attah Mills on the Ya Na case, and his “father for all” for all motto. I was expecting that by morning, even before news break, arrests would have been made to show government’s seriousness on the matter. How could they resort to burn ND...
Read more

EXAMINING THE ESSENCE OF NATIONAL FARMERS DAY IN RELATION TO THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE YOUTH OF GHANA

Farmers have for a very long time dominated in percentage wise, the total working force of Ghana for a very long time. Not Until recently, Farmers were always estimated to constitute about sixty percent of the total Labour force of Ghana. The long standing domination of the countries labour force by farmers indicates how important farming is to Ghana and Ghanaians. A brief enumeration of the importance of farming will even look like an attempt to overemphasise the importance of farming. This is because the benefits of Agriculture to us as a people are uncountable. These importances have thus informed a culture of encouragement and reward scheme for farmers which is to award deserving farmers in an attempt to boost morale and encourage farming in the country. Thus, the National Farmers Day. To me this is a very brilliant accomplishment for a government to practice. It is thus the expectation of all Ghanaians’ that Today as we enjoy our holiday in solidarity with ou...
Read more