Accra (Greater Accra) 09 July 2001
The Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey on Friday said parliamentarians, who absent themselves from Parliament for 15 sitting days of the House without permission would lose their seats.
He has, therefore, directed the Clerk of Parliament to submit a list of those who have absented themselves since the second meeting of the House began on May 8.
Mr Ala Adjetey gave the indication when Mr Norbert Awulley, NDC-Builsa South expressed dissatisfaction with the poor attendance in the House during the correction of votes and proceedings.
Mr Awulley said attendance in the House the previous day July 5 was 145 present and 28 were absent with permission.
He said this meant that 23 members were absent without permission and quoted the Standing Order 16 (1), which stipulated that a member shall lose his seat if he absented himself/herself from the House for 15 sitting days.
However, it did not state whether consecutively or cumulatively.
Mr Ala Adjetey stressed that he has repeatedly complained about attendance in the House and has for sometime now asked the leadership to advise him on what action to take on absentees.
He warned that absenteeism in the House was a serious constitutional issue, which should not be taken lightly. "It is serious for a an MP to lose his seat for absenteeism," he added.
In a business statement presented to the House, Mr J.H. mensah, Leader and Minister of Government Business announced that the House will sit on Monday, July 16, to enable it finish its work on schedule to be able to rise on Friday, July 27.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 July 2001
Mr Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, Minister for Roads and Highways on Friday said it has become necessary to repackage road contracts and put them on open competitive tender.
He said it has come to the notice of the Ministry that all previous negotiated contracts were on the high side, making it difficult to find the needed funding for their completion.
Answering questions on what his ministry was doing to establish maintenance units in the districts to undertake routine repairs, Mr Adjei-Darko said the staff of the Department of Feeder Roads (DFR) are to be merge with those of the Public Works Department (PWD), Department for Rural Housing (DRH) and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) to form the Works Department of the district assemblies.
He said the 110 political districts have, therefore, been grouped into 40 Area Centres to be manned by the technical staff of the merged departments, adding that 249 of them have a grade of technician engineer and above.
Mr Adjei-Darko said the 40 Area Centres are proposed to be set up by the end of 2002 and the existing office facilities of the PWD are to be used by the area teams while the government makes efforts to provide more office and residential accommodation in some of the less endowed and remote districts.
He said the merger Committee recommended that the decentralisation of the four outfits should be implemented in phases. The first phase is to cover a period of two years, during which, the district assemblies would share the existing staff and resources of the merged outfits.
He said the DFR has already posted 11 technician engineers (civil) to 11 Area Centres and have road foremen in 27 political districts.
The DFR is to use the maintenance performance budgeting system for the management of the routine and recurrent maintenance of feeder roads and bridges in the district assemblies.
Mr Adjei-Darko said each district assembly would be assisted to identify, select and prioritise roads and bridges for spot improvement, rehabilitation and construction while technical teams would guide them in environmental, traffic and other relevant technical data collection.
He said it has been recommended that the direct labour recurrent maintenance operations of the DFR be phased out and all periodic maintenance, rehabilitation and reconstruction or construction projects executed by contractors as is the current practice.
The question stood in the name of Mr Joseph Tsatsu Agbenu, NDC- Afram Plains North.
Other questions which stood in the name of Mr Abraham Kofi Asante, NDC- Amenfi West were on the arrangements made for the rehabilitation of the Awudikrom Junction - Bokakore- Fordjourkrom Cocoa road, the tarring of the Manso Amenfi-Asankrangua-Enchi road and when work would resume on the Nope-Torompan-Patasi road, all in the Western Region.
Mr Adjei-Darko said in addition to the submission of progress reports with every payment certificate prepared, the Area Teams and the regional offices would prepare monthly, quarterly and annual reports on all projects under their supervision.
The Minister said the Awudikrom Junction- Bokakore-Fordjourkrom cocoa road was a feeder road, which links both Wassa Amenfi and the Sefwi Wiawso Districts in the Western Region.
He said the road has been earmarked for routine maintenance in the 2001 budget for spot improvement and grading.
Mr Adjei-Darko said the future programme of the Ministry was to rehabilitate the link between Bokakore and Fordjourkrom after the completion of a steel bridge at Fordjourkrom.
The Minister said the 93 kilometres Amenfi-Asankragua-Enchi road is part of the regional road, which links the Agona Nkwanta- Tarkwa-Bogoso-Ayanfuri inter-regional road and the Elubo-Enchi-Jabeso-Goaso-Sunyani national road at Bawdie and Enchi, respectively.
Routine maintenance activities such as grading and spot re-gravelling would be undertaken on the road this year. Bids for the contract have been evaluated and reviewed and recommendations for award were been forwarded to the Regional
Tender Board for work to commence by the end of July.
Mr Adjei-Darko said the Nope-Torompan-Patasi, which is a 12-kilometre feeder road in the Wasa Amenfi West District in the Western Region was awarded on contract for rehabilitation in 1999 and for completion in 2000 but the performance on the project has been slow with only about 22 per cent of it completed up to date.
The Minister said due to the slow pace of work, the contractor has been officially written to accelerate work and the ministry would monitor the performance to ensure that the work was completed on time. If the contractor fails to perform, the project would be terminated and re-awarded to another contractor.
Ms Sena Akua Dansua, NDC-North Dayi, asked the Minister why the Kpando
District, which was chosen as a pilot district, was not made one of the Area Centres in the Volta Region.
Mr Adjei-Darko said the decision to choose Hohoe as the Area centre was because of the availability of personnel but promised that eventually all the District Assemblies would be autonomous and decentralised.
Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, NDC Wenchi West, said since there was serious unemployment why was it necessary to stop the direct labour recurrent maintenance and adopt capital-intensive methods.
The Minister said the Member was confusing the two issues since the new arrangement was to get more contractors to undertake projects and this would ensure more jobs for the people.
Nana Asante-Frempong, NPP-Kwabre, asked the Minister why the smaller districts with more feeder roads were made to join bigger areas as Kumasi and Offinso political districts.
Mr Adjei -Darko said the bigger towns have less feeder roads and so there was no way that they would have more influence of the Teams work since most of the roads there were under the Department of Urban roads but that the issue could be reviewed in due course.
Mr Samuel Sallas-Mensah, NDC- Upper West Akim, asked the Minister whether the stalling of contracts was not a deliberate plan to stop particular contractors from executing their contracts.
The Minister said the road sector was in big arrears. He said since 1976 some contractors have not been paid their monies for projects executed.
"Some of the contracts came to a standstill not because they were stopped by government but that there was not enough funds to pay the contractors."
Mr Adjei-Darko said the government has so far cleared a backlog of arrears amounting to 100 billion cedis on routine road maintenance projects.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 July 2001
Members of Parliament on Friday empathised with lepers and asked that the Ghanaian society commit their love, resources and support to them.
Five out of every 1,000 Ghanaians suffer from leprosy - the oldest infectious disease known to man.
Mr Victor Gheho, Independent-Anlo, who made a statement in the House to whip up awareness of the disease, said, "I am encouraged to do so because very few people speak for lepers in this country".
He said the disease was no longer a public health threat and that "most of us have had contact with the germ (that causes leprosy) and have developed a kind of immunity to it".
Mr Gbeho said: "We also know that children, who have been given the BCG vaccination are somehow protected from the scourge of the disease. There should be very little fear for it, therefore, among our people."
He said health facilities in the country have the capacity to cure leprosy cases and, therefore, asked people to seek prompt medical help when infected.
"There is no reason, therefore, to stigmatise or ostracise those who suffer from or are cured of the disease. Those whom we see around with disfigured faces, limbs and bodies are essentially those, who had the infection long before being introduced to the drug that effectively fights the disease."
He said: "They are all cured but still bear the marks of disfigurement." Mr Gbeho called for the scrapping of leprosy camps and lending more resources to its cure.
"These camps are filled largely with Ghanaians who have already been cured of leprosy but continue to live in those camps because they are rejected by their families out of fear and ignorance."
The Anlo MP said: "Leper colonies are indeed things of the past and we should phase them out by first of all educating ourselves on Leprosy."
Mr Kwaku Balado-Manu, NPP-Ahafo Ano South, said many people in Ghana still see leprosy as curse from God or local deities.
He said rural dwellers should be well educated on the disease, as its demystification would help to slow down the infection.
Mr Amadu Seidu, NDC-Yapei Kasawgu, called on able-bodied Ghanaians to take care of the weak and distressed.
Leprosy is a skin infection caused by Mycobacterium Leprae.
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