Parliament to debate report on problems facing students

Let's adopt Minority Leader's proposal - Major Amponsah

SDA delegation calls on Speaker

Accra (Greater Accra), 22^nd January 2000

Parliament will on Friday, January 28, debate a report of its special committee on problems facing students in tertiary institutions.

Dr Kwabena Adjei, Leader of the House, announced this on Friday while presenting the business statement for the third week ending Friday, January 28.

He said it was the conviction of the Business Committee that by January 28, the Ministry of Education and the other relevant authorities would have sufficiently prepared themselves to respond to the issues raised by the report.

The House is expected to conclude debate on the motion to thank the President for the Sessional Address, during the week.

The Business Committee decided that the Minister of Finance, Attorney-General and the Auditor-General should be invited to brief a parliamentary "Committee of the Whole House" on the modalities to facilitate the House's oversight responsibility in respect of the implementation of its recommendations on the Auditor-General's report.

The Ministers of Education, Communications, Lands and Forestry and Roads and Transport would be in the House to answer questions.

The Speaker may allow statements from Members and there would be committee meetings, Dr Adjei said.

GRi

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The National Democratic Congress member for Mpohor Wassa East, Major Samuel Kwame Amponsah (rtd), on Friday called for the inclusion of Mr. J. H. Mensah, Minority Leader's, proposal on national reconciliation in the framework for achieving national unity.

"We should give praise where it is due. Mr. Mensah mentioned very vital points which when considered seriously, will help in our bid to achieve the desired unity and reconciliation."

Major Amponsah was contributing to the debate to thank President Jerry John Rawlings' for his last sessional address.

The President apologised for the excesses of his regime and called for national unity and reconciliation.

In Mr. Mensah's response christened "Realisation, Restitution and Reconciliation ", he promised that the minority would among other things sponsor a bill to legitimise the proper resettlement of the President after his exit from office.

He also called for compensation for all those who suffered losses during the era.

Major Amponsah called for the retention of Mr. Mensah in the house to enable the next legislature to share his wisdom, adding, "the issue of reconciliation should be given a broader perspective to cover all those who suffered in various degrees in the evolutionary era".

Mr. Osei Kwaku, (NPP-Asokwa West), said the government had subjected Ghanaians to "very bitter socio-economic hardships" and that "the very issue of corruption for which Dr Hilary Limann's government was overthrown, has become endemic in the system.

Squadron Leader Clend Sowu, (NDC-Anlo), said when people assume that using public office for private gain is meant by corruption, then, that yardstick would exclude majority of the people.

Alhaji Babalami Abu-Sadat, (NDC- Awutu Senya), called on the government to give the needed resources to all agencies tasked with the implementation of the census programme.

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Mr. Justice Daniel Francis Annan, Speaker of Parliament, on Friday told a visiting delegation from the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church that democracy has come to stay in Ghana.

Mr. Justice Annan was speaking during a courtesy call on him by the delegation led by Dr Jan Paulsen, SDA's World Leader.

He briefed the delegation on the proceedings of Parliament and said "this House is under a new democratic dispensation of the Fourth Republic in which the electorate had elected their representatives through free and fair elections".

He talked about the impending general elections and said Ghanaians need God's guidance spiritually, politically and morally to ensure violent-free polls.

Dr Paulsen said the delegation was in Ghana to oversee an election of executive members of the Church and their inauguration into office tomorrow, Saturday, January 22.

He said he was privileged to be back in Ghana after so many years since "I left the country".

Dr Paulsen noted that proceedings in the Parliaments of Britain and Ghana have a lot in common.

He expressed gratitude to God that the SDA Church in Ghana, which in the past depended solely on foreign aid and donor assistance to carry out its programmes, "is now self-reliant".

Dr Paulsen commended the government for expanding education and health facilities and said the two sectors are the Church's major areas of specialisation.

Alhaji Mumuni Abudu Seidu, Deputy Majority Leader, thanked the delegation for their visit and expressed gratitude to the international community for its support to the country's democratic process.

Mr. J. H. Mensah, Minority Leader, commended the SDA Church for its immense contribution to education.

He said as a young democracy, Ghana is striving to entrench the democratic culture in the country and to ensure good governance.

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