Accra (Greater Accra) 22 December 2001 - The Minority in Parliament on Friday staged a walk- out when the National Reconciliation Bill was being taken through the consideration stage, where amendments were being made to it.
The Majority defeated the proposals the Minority made about the composition of the commission, which they said should include a representation of the Danquah-Busia tradition, the Nkrumah tradition, the Rawlings tradition, the Ghana Journalists Association, the Christian Council and the Muslim Council among other groups.
The Majority and the Minority were divided on the period of the coverage of the Bill, the Minority saying they wanted it to begin from March 6, 1957 to January 6, 1993, while the Majority wanted it restricted to only the period of unconstitutional regimes.
Alhaji Muhamad Mumuni, Ranking Member, Committee on Legal Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, wanted to make a statement on the issue but the First Deputy Speaker, Mr Freddie Blay, who was in the Chair overruled him. In reaction, the Minority staged a walk out.
Mr Mumuni in a statement said the Minority had noted: "With utter disappointment the trend in the consideration of the National Reconciliation Bill, particularly the decision that had just been taken to restrict the remit of the National Reconciliation Commission to only the periods of unconstitutional rule in our nation's political history."
He said the general view of Ghanaians as expressed by respectable individuals, chiefs, civil society organisations and experts was that the time frame for national reconciliation should be March 6, 1957 to January 6, 1993.
He said the overwhelming view at an international conference on national reconciliation organized by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development and the Civil Society Coalition in June was that the time frame for the commission's work should cover that period.
"The time frame for examining cases of abuses and injustices should not be too restrictive to be construed as overly selective and targeting people.
"The unabashed conviction of the Minority was that the criteria of all inclusiveness both in terms of space and time was a sine qua non for achieving genuine and sincere reconciliation by ensuring widespread acceptance and ownership of the reconciliation process by the largest segment of the Ghanaian.
"It must also inspire confidence in the integrity and credibility of the process." He expressed regret that "to expend so much energy, time and scarce national resources on an enterprise, which is predictably a grand fiasco is tantamount to the dissipation of the tax payers' toil and sweat and inexcusable.
"We in the Minority in this respect cannot countenance this. Therefore, we wish to state that we shall take no further part in the consideration of this instant bill," he added. The Majority, however, continued to sit.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 22 December 2001 - The Speaker of Parliament, Peter Ala Adjetey, on Friday referred to the Privileges Committee, a complaint that one member, Johnson Asiedu Nketsia, NDC Wenchi West, was verbally assaulted by a member of the public.
The Speaker said a prima facie case was established that the MP was molested in the performance of his duties, which was contempt of "this Honourable House".
It was the first time that such an incident was referred to the committee since the third Parliament began its work about a year.
He asked that the case should be investigated and reported to him as soon as practicable. Mr Asiedu Nketsia in his complaint to the House said one Mrs Rosemary Ekwam, a prominent NPP member, verbally assaulted him at the tail end of Mr Spreaker's cocktail party held last Wednesday.
He said the incident took place in the presence of Mr Joe Badu Ansah, NPP Effiah-Kwesimintsim and Mr Yaw Barima, Minister of Works and Housing and a woman whose name he did not know.
Mr Asiedu Nketsia said when Mr Ansah introduced him to the woman, she indicated to him, Mr Nketsia that another woman was "desperately" looking for him.
He said when the second woman appeared and asked him whether he knew her, he replied in the negative. Mr Asiedu Nketsia said the woman introduced herself as Mrs Ekwam, who claimed that he, the MP had lied to the whole world against her in Parliament.
Mr Asiedu quoted the woman as saying: "You lied that I stripped myself naked during an anti-Rawlings demonstration and I will show you my nakedness today. Foolish man."
Mr Asiedu Nketsia said at that juncture, he realised that the woman was the author of a letter to the Speaker sometime after the parliamentary vetting of the President's nominees for ministerial appointments.
Mr Asiedu Nketsia, who is a member of the appointments committee, said the woman complained about an allegation supposed to have been made by him against Mrs Ekwam.
Mr Asiedu Nketsia said he had dismissed the allegation as baseless and based on misinformation and even requested that the recorded proceedings at the vetting session be replayed for her to hear at first hand what transpired at the hearing of Ms Theresa Tagoe.
He said his information was that that was done by the Speaker's good office and until the day of the incident "I thought she was convinced about the baselessness of her allegation."
Mr Asiedu Nketsia said: "If this incident was to be an isolated case, I would have allowed it to pass with the contempt it deserved. "However, it comes in the sequence of incidents involving me, which are too similar to be dismissed as coincidence."
Mr Asiedu Nketsia recounted that when Mr Benjamin Osei Kufuor, NPP Asunafo North, had declined the offer to become a deputy minister "I was confronted at the car park of this House by some two men, who claimed to be the relatives of Mr Osei Kufuor, they insulted and warned me never to set foot in Mim, their home town. "This incident was witnessed by an honourable member of this House."
Mr Asiedu Nketsia said: "On the 31st day of August, 2001, I was attacked by a mob led by no less a person than the Brong Ahafo Regional Chairman of the NPP, Mr Yaboah Fordjour, at a radio station in Sunyani.
"On the fourth of October 2001, my pickup came under attack by a group of NPP youth in Sabiye Banda, who had laid ambush on a high way.
"This, I later learnt was organised by the District Chief Executive of Wenchi, who had contested me in the last election on the NPP ticket."
He quoted standing orders 28 and 30J and 1 and 31 and prayed the Speaker that the complaints raised be referred to the Privileges Committee.
He declared: "I will like to assure both my funs and detractors that I will never be deterred from performing my lawful duties as a member of Parliament and I will do this with my conscience very intact."
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Accra (Greater Accra) 22 December 2001 - Parliament on Friday congratulated Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, MP for Bimbilla, on his election as Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey said Dr Chambas had made Ghana proud and needed the support and prayers of all Ghanaians to succeed in his new endeavour.
The Speaker made the remark when Mr Kwamena Adusa Okerchiri, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, made a statement on the election of Dr Chambas.
Mr Okerchiri said: "Dr Chambas is indeed familiar with the contours of the West African terrain. He has been in the thick and thin of the shuttle diplomacy that brought relative peace and stability for instance to the war-torn Mano River Zone.
"Dr Chambas, an astute politician imbued with abundant knowledge in integration and regionalism coupled with diplomatic finesse brought those qualities to bear on the work of the committees he belonged to in Parliament."
He said although Parliament would miss Dr Chambas, he had, nevertheless, made Ghanaians proud. Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, NDC Kumbungu, commended ex-President Jerry Rawlings for identifying the good in Dr Chambas and for bringing him from abroad to work in his government.
Alhaji Mumuni said President John Agyekum Kufuor similarly deserved an equal high commendation for his determination to sponsor Dr Chambas to the enviable position.
In a press statement signed by Mr Alban Bagbin, Minority Leader, the Minority commended the government and the people of Ghana for their support for Dr Chambas during the bid.
The statement said: "The minority is particularly proud that one of its members and a member of the NDC who performed creditably in government in various capacities over the last two decades has been appointed to this august office."
It said the NDC minority was proud that a Ghanaian of the calibre of Dr Chambas was elected to head the ECOWAS Secretariat at a time when the need for regional integration had become an urgent and paramount consideration.
The statement expressed the hope that the traditions of modesty and efficiency with which he served in government would be brought to bear on the challenges of the new office to which he has been elected.
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