GRi in Parliament 15 - 11 - 2001
Who is a Housewife? MPs ponder
Report on Reconciliation Bill laid
Women get credit through micro financing
Accra (Greater Accra) 15 November 20001 - The leadership of Parliament on Wednesday faced its toughest test yet on definitions when it came to defining who a housewife was.
Deputy Minister of Finance, Mrs Grace Coleman's definition that a housewife should necessarily have a husband and be confined to her household most of the time did not go down well with the Minority.
Mrs Ama Benyiwa Doe, NDC-Gomoa West, had protested after engaging the Deputy Minister in an argument that the definition was aimed at her and that it sought to ridicule her.
The member had described herself as a housewife and that she was a mother and took care of her household.
Mr J. H. Mensah, NPP-Sunyani East and Senior Minister, had introduced the terminology in his contribution to the motion for the endorsement of the mid-year review of the 2001 budget and financial policy of the government.
The Senior Minister had alluded to the fact that Mr Moses Asaga's criticism of the budget review that people were clamouring for better wages because of the price hikes on the market was false since only housewives could tell the real day to day market situation in the country.
Mrs Doe's bid to heckle the Senior Minister on a point of order led to the clash with Mrs Coleman. The member said she was not the type that went around parading husbands. Mr Coleman is a regular visitor of the public gallery of Parliament.
Mrs Coleman said Mrs Doe had no husband so she could not call herself a housewife in the first place.
When Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, Speaker, asked Mr Mensah for his views on the matter he said:" The Housewife issue is a big one. These are secrets of the woman's world in which we humble men dare not enter."
Mr Doe Adjaho, the Minority Chief Whip, raised the issue again when everyone thought it had died calling for the member's withdrawal of her definition.
Mrs Grace Coleman withdrew and apologised saying "I did not under any circumstances want to impugn misconduct on the member.
GRi../
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 November 2001 - Three papers, including a report on the National Reconciliation Bill, were on Wednesday laid in Parliament.
The other two were a report from the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation on the Water Use Regulations L. I. 1692 and Unit Trusts and Mutual Funds Regulations L.I. 1695.
The report on the Reconciliation Bill signed by Mr Abraham Ossei Aidoo, Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs said: "When passed will be the first crucial step towards healing the festering sores within our body politic emanating from human rights violations inflicted by the state or its servants."
It said it would also enable the country to move forward as a united people and in addition send liberal and democratic signals to the international community.
It said: "The quest for reconciliation also seeks to put to an end to the cycle of vengeance and political recrimination that has so far been our lot. This noble exercise needs the support of all to ensure that the objectives of the Bill are achieved".
Just after the Bill was laid Mr Doe Adjaho, the Minority Chief Whip prayed the Speaker, to give him a guide as to the Constitutional interpretation of Article 106 (14), which stated that no report should be kept for more than three months when it was referred to a committee.
He said the Bill has been with the committee since July and that it had outlived its constitutional time frame and wondered what about what could be done under the circumstance.
Peter Ala Adjetey, Speaker, acknowledged that the Bill had actually been delayed but that the spirit of Article 106 was only to ensure that committees did not deliberately delay materials for legislation.
He said the Article did not say that if a material was delayed then it had become moribund and for that matter the House could not use it. The Speaker thus said the delay would not affect the validity of the Bill.
GRi../
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 November 2001 - The Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs is to establish a micro-finance fund at the Bank of Ghana to enable women access credit for their economic ventures to promote gender equity.
Ms Gladys Asmah, the sector Minister, told Parliament on Wednesday that the action was being undertaken in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance.
She was answering questions, which stood in the name of Mr Abraham Owusu Baidoo, NDC-Twifo/Hemang/Lower Denkyira and Mr Victor Okuley Nortey, NPP Ablekuma Central.
Mr Baidoo wanted to know what plans the ministry had to give economic empowerment to women in the Twifo Hemang/Lower Denkyira District while Mr Nortey asked what the it was doing to ensure the full integration of women into the mainstream of the economic development of Ghana.
Ms Asmah said the women in the Twifo/Hemang/Lower Denkyira District would benefit from the fund and that they would benefit from the Ministry's training programme as well.
She announced that the Ministry had launched a programme known as "Operation Produce More Gari" with support from the country's development partners, under which women, who were in cassava growing areas, would be trained to enable them to add value to their produce by processing it into gari.
She said about 25 of such cassava processing machines were to be installed in the Central Region where the district was located.
Ms Asmah said, "a micro-credit fund of an initial capital of three million dollars was being created to allow women groups to access credit to enable them enter the main stream of economic development.
She said: "A national gender policy for the promotion of gender equality has been prepared by the Ministry."
GRi../
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