Kyei Mensah Bonsu Calls for Constitutional Reforms At Launch Of Parliament’s 30th Anniversary

The Member of Parliament for Suame Constituency, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, has appealed for constitutional reforms to meet today’s realities.

According to him, international organisations have adopted resolutions which will require Ghana to effect an amendment to the 1992 Constitution to realise them.

He stated that it’s about time the country re-engineered its constitutional architecture.

“We need a constitutional order that frowns upon winner-takes-all syndrome and promotes collaborations, collectiveness and consensus building in decision-making at all levels of governance. We need a new constitutional order that will ensure gender equity and in many respect, equality to promote real development.”

He continued, “the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) have resolved that by 2025, all Parliaments in the World must comprise about 30% of women representation. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has adopted a similar position since last year. How prepared is the Parliament of Ghana to align without the relevant amendment to the Constitution.”

He is also demanding reforms to prevent an increase in parliamentary seats, put a cap on the number of Ministers of State and enable Parliament to select an MP as Speaker.

Delivering a speech to mark the launch of the 30th Anniversary of Parliament, he said, “We need… a new order that will ensure that the Speaker of Parliament is a serving member of parliament and that the Parliament of Ghana does not remain as one of only nine parliament’s in the world whose Speakers are not Members of Parliament.

“We need a constitutional order that will accord Parliament that Financial independence that is required to enable Parliament to stand on its own feet. A new constitutional arrangement that will leverage Parliament to perform its legislative functions without impediments intended or unintended.

“Mr Speaker we need a new constitutional order that will give birth to an economic paradigm that will engender wealth creation, entrepreneurial spirit as well as jobs for our people especially the youth with the active partnership of Parliament.

“A new constitutional order that will remodel the composition of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to purge it of the overly partisan colouration and populate it with neutral citizens who will develop a real long-term national development plan around which the parties will extraction their manifestoes and therefore ensure that succeeding administrations continue the programmes and projects started by their predecessors to prevent the wanting dissipation of scanty resources of this country.”

He also talked of reforms that will regulate the emoluments of Article 71 Office holders and subject the works of the Auditor-General to Parliamentary scrutiny before publication for public consumption.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini