Parliament begins debate on President's
address
There is peace in AGC – Bannerman
Resist coup attempts, MP tells Ghanaians
President's guinea worm eradication plan is
unrealistic - Seidu Amadu
Parliament begins debate on President's
address
Accra (Greater Accra) 22 February 2001
Parliament on Wednesday began an interesting and lively debate on President John Agyekum Kufuor's maiden address on the state of the nation with the Majority proclaiming it as a visionary one that would take the country out of the woods.
The Minority, however, countered that it was a pack of misinformation and lacked direction.
Mr. John Akologo Tia (NDC Talensi) summed it all up while seconding a motion for the House to adjourn after the hectic debate when he said: "My honourable friends opposite have had enough of the blows. I would have wished the debate to continue but it is enough for today".
Papa Owusu-Ankomah (NPP Sekondi), Deputy Majority Leader, moved after more than three hours of debate that the House adjourn sitting to Thursday.
The debate began hotly when Mr Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu (NPP Old Tafo Suame) moved that the House should thank the President for delivering the message that has the thrust to energise Ghanaians who are now liberated in the new democratic dispensation to harness their talents to achieve economic targets and strengthen democracy.
He said the opposition members, who earlier talked to the press before the debate, condemned the address because, being the former ruling party, they were now peeved and turned themselves into "tail twisters".
"The prophecy former President Jerry John Rawlings made when he gave his last address to parliament that the political leadership would change this year has been fulfilled and the opposition should co-operate with the new government to deliver."
Mr. Kyei Mensah-Bonsu's motion was interrupted with points of order and the Speaker had to ask him about four times to sum up.
The fireworks began when Mr Moses Asaga (NDC Nabdam), seconding the motion, said for the President to describe the country's debt situation as daunting and sobering was absolute misinformation.
Mr Asaga said in 1990 the Breton Woods Institution described "Ghana as the people's Star of IMF and the World Bank and congratulated the then government for its good work".
He said that in 1999, the Corporate Council of the US awarded only Ghana and five other African countries for excellent economic performance.
Mr. Asaga asked: "Is it a situation of hopelessness?", and the answer 'No, No' thundered from the Minority side.
"Ghana Stock Exchange was listed on the London and New York markets because of the turn around of the economy," Mr Asaga said.
He said the 31.7 trillion cedis foreign debt that the President described as shocking were incurred as loans for the infrastructural development of the country.
Mr. Asaga said the previous government had for the past four years been operating a deficit budget, which has never been hidden because the budget of the then government was always brought to Parliament for approval.
He said the address was silent on the mining, cocoa and works and housing sectors which provide water and housing to the rural areas as well as those of financial and banking sectors, adding that there were fundamental lapses in the address.
The Minority gave Mr Asaga a standing ovation and some moved to his seat, shook his hands and held it up as if he had won a boxing tournament.
The Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, advised the Minority to conform to parliamentary standards of showing appreciation to a member for making a distinguished speech.
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There is peace in AGC – Bannerman
Accra (Greater Accra) 22 February 2001
The Minister of Manpower Development and Employment, Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, on Wednesday told Parliament that the strike action in the Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited has been called off and the workers are going about their work peacefully.
The minister was answering an urgent question by Mr Abraham Kofi Asante, NDC-Amenfi West, who wanted to know the causes of the recent strike actions by workers of AGC-Obuasi and what steps were being taken to resolve the issue.
She said the cause of the three-day strike action, which started on January 31, this year, was solely an intra-union issue and had nothing to do with the management of AGC.
Mrs. Bannerman said 2,000 junior staff, 150 senior and five expatriate staff were laid off in accordance with labour rationalisation embarked on by the company in September, 1999. This also affected another batch of 700 permanent employees who also lost their jobs.
As part of the policy, AGC reduced contract (casual) labour by 50 per cent, which affected 195 workers, she said, and explained that on January 12, the branch secretary of the Ghana Mines Workers Union, Obuasi, Ms Adelaide Borden, without reference to the other executive members of the local union, called the laid-off contract workers and allegedly made "provocative pronouncements to them".
Mrs. Bannerman said the pronouncements incited the workers against management who went on strike and petitioned the President through the District Chief Executive of Obuasi.
This action infuriated the executive members of the local union who wrote to the National Union of Ghana Mines Workers and reported the conduct of Miss Borden and interdicted her for organising a workers a rally without the consent of the parent unions.
The minister said the workers went on strike because they thought it was the management of the company who interdicted their secretary but when the situation was explained to them, they rescinded their decision.
Mrs. Bannerman said the situation there was under control and that the interdiction of the woman was still in force.
To a question, Mrs Bannerman said she could not immediately tell how much the state lost during the strike action.
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Resist coup attempts, MP tells Ghanaians
Accra (Greater Accra) 22 February 2001
Mr. Sampson Ottu Darkoh, NPP Member of Parliament for Ga North, has called on Ghanaians to resist any coup attempt that will derail the country's democracy.
Contributing to the debate on the President's state of the nation address in Parliament on Wednesday, Mr Darkoh asked the people to resort to civil disobedience by trooping onto the streets to denounce any usurpation of power by the military
He called on Ghanaians to develop the courage and zeal to thwart any attempt to circumvent democracy and to help nurture it to blossom into a full blown democratic edifice in Africa.
The MP said the democratic spirit, which was demonstrated during the December 2000 elections, must be sustained to accelerate the political development of the country.
Mr. Darkoh, who described the President's address as "a graphic word map to tackle the multifarious problems left behind by the previous government", advocated the redefinition of district electoral boundaries to reflect the population distribution.
He said while some areas have a population of 20,000 people, others have members as low as 3,000 and yet they are represented by one assembly member.
The MP blamed the previous government for abusing the constitutional provision, which allows the government to appoint one-third of the members of district assemblies by appointing party functionaries to those positions instead of professionals who would serve as resource persons to the assemblies.
Mr. Darkoh said it would therefore be in the national interest to elect members to district assemblies instead of appointing them. He did not however say if the elections should be on partisan basis or not.
In his contribution, Dr Tia Alfred Sugri, NDC Nalerigu, advised the Kufuor administration to promote democracy by sustaining the Youth in Agriculture Programme instituted by the NDC government to engage the youth in the rural areas to boost food production.
He called on the government to persuade the banks to reduce the interest rate on loans to farmers which is now pegged at 45 per cent.
Dr Sugri said a reduction in the interest rate would help the country attain food sufficiency to meet the government's promise "to grow what we eat and eat what we have".
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President's guinea worm eradication plan is
unrealistic - Seidu Amadu
Accra (Greater Accra) 22 February 2001
President John Agyekum Kufuor's pledge to eradicate the guinea worm prevalence by the middle of 2002 has been described as "illusive and unrealistic".
Alhaji Seidu Amadu, NDC-Yapei/Kusawgu, in his contribution to a debate on the sessional address on Wednesday said "the eradication of guinea worm is not like the treatment of hernia".
He said the guinea worm takes a minimum of nine months to incubate and, with the present 40 per cent pipe-borne water coverage of the country, "I don't see this idea materialising so soon".
The member said Ghana would need 400 million dollars to set up its pipe-borne coverage to 85 per cent within eight years "by which time Mr. Kufuor would have completed a second term as President".
Mr. Kwame Osei-Prempeh, NPP-Nsuta Kwamang, described the address as a "litany of woes".
He said it did not contain "details on how KVIPs are going to be completed and commissioned but it is very potent and will lead us to paradise".
The member commended the President for laying bare the "legacy of hopelessness" left by the former government.
"The code of conduct being drawn up at the instance of the President will erase this legacy and guide public officers in their endeavours.
"In the beginning, there were men of straw who later became rich men and turned around to tell us to tighten up. We have been promised that it will not happen again."
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