By Rebecca Ekpe
Ghana’s Parliament has once again made it onto the international headlines after the Speaker Alban Sumani Bagbin adjourned the House indefinitely for lack of quorum after the New Patriotic Party Majority Caucus staged a walkout, following an on-going dispute over who occupies the Majority side of the aisle.
To bring some finality to the issues, Dr. Rasheed Draman, Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), is proposing that the leader of the country, President Akufo Addo, should convene a meeting between the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Alban Sumana Bagbin, Majority Leader, Afenyo Markin, and his team, as well as Minority Leader, Caissel Ato Forson, and his team to ensure that cool heads prevailed.
In an interview on TV 3, the ACEPA Boss said,‘’ I know we are in a heavily polarized environment but…the President should call the leaders of the NDC and NPP in the Parliament for them to……negotiate. The replications, particularly from their foot soldiers, from the party and so on, will be huge”…but Dr. Draman believes negotiation is obviously the way to go, and a very wider kind of stakeholder negotiation is required.
He opined that the current 8th Parliamentary of the 3rd Republic stalemate should provide a moment of lessons for both sides of the House. Dr. Draman disagreed with persons who say that Parliament has a lot of Bills to pass or have items on its agenda to complete ahead of the December 7 Elections, and says that the assertion is unfair to the people of Ghana because, often times, some issues are left to pass through the cracks, avoiding scrutiny over the years when items are brought to pass during the closing stages of Parliament.
‘’So I think the parties have to learn some lessons from this. If there’s business, let’s give our members of Parliament enough time. Let’s bring it forward. And this current crisis is teaching us a very important lesson. If you put these things, hold them to the last minute, you face this kind of situation, and our country can come to a stop,” Dr. Draman posited.
