NDC MPs make "about-turn" to reject report on new constituencies

Chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Mr Osei Kwame Prempeh, has described yesterday’s incident in Parliament as the “saddest day in parliament” which will pass for a “record”.

His comment follows Parliament’s rejection of the Subsidiary Committee's recommendation that the CI 78 which would give legal backing for the creation of 45 new constituencies be annulled.

According to Mr Osei Kwame Prempeh who was speaking in a telephone interview with host of e.tv Ghana’s Breafast TV, Bismark Brown, during a sitting of the committee on Monday, September 24, 2012, members agreed that indeed the CI78 had some mistakes in it such as the omission of some electoral areas.

He said, it was based on that conclusion that the committee’s report recommended that the creation of the 45 new constituencies be annulled.

He said, “After we had deliberated on the instrument we wrote the report and then on Monday last week we met and then a conclusion came out. At that time, it was only one member belonging to the NDC who said that he doesn’t support the report and therefore he wanted us to make it as a majority and not as a unanimous report and we agreed to that and made it a majority report.”

Mr Osei Kwame Prempeh who is the Member of Parliament for Nsuta expressed surprise at the way some members of parliament who had called for the annulment of the constituencies turned around to “attack” it on the floor of parliament.

“When we got to the house, even members of the committee who had sat and gone through the instrument one by one comparing it to the LI1973 and found out that these electoral areas were not in they came on the floor of the house to say that what we had said was not correct and that I had manufactured those errors in the report; which was very surprising,” he said.

He went on to say that, “We took very painstaking steps in trying to prepare the report and the committee members all knew that. But this is politics for you. Members who had sat in the committee I understand some of them, like Honourable Abongo from Bongo who had an electoral area who is a member of the committee turned around to say that the report is wrong.”

“The minority can always have their say but the majority will have their way. But if when there is so much dishonesty and lack of intergrity, it is very worrying. That is why I’m saying that it was a sad day in parliament yesterday. After 15 years in parliament, yesterday was one of the days that I became very sad. I mean for the behaviour of members who had sat in a committee, gone through the document, found that this thing is a mistake, they go to the floor of parliament and attack their own report?  It was a sad day yesterday. Ah, it is a record.”

Members of Parliament on Monday engaged in a lengthy debate on the controversial CI 78 report which was laid before Parliament last Friday by the Subsidiary Legislative Committee.
The subsidiary legislative committee which worked on the CI 78 says the document should be annulled because some people will be disenfranchised if the CI 78 is allowed to mature.

According to the report, over 26 electoral areas were not captured in the CI 78 while some non-existent constituencies have been added to the document.

However, following the rejection of the report, the new law which allows for the creation of the new 45 constituencies is expected to be passed by close of day today.