Month: June 2021

Speaker of Ghana’s 8th Parliament, Rt. Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin said he would support any positive discrimination to get women take their rightful place in the Ghanaian governance system.

According to him the issue of women empowerment has been over flogged and lamented that over numerous talks on issue of women empowerment but no action is being carried out, and waiting for the affirmative action bill to be laid in Ghana’s Parliament.

He further noted that as a Parliament, some urgent provisions would be used to ensure the Bill is passed by the close of this year. “The Bill is still with the Executive and has not yet come to parliament, we are anticipating it comes this week”

Speaker Bagbin made this assertion when representatives of the various United Nations Agencies in Ghana called on him in his conference room on Monday, June 14, 2021.

And further pointed out that there is the need to engage various political parties, civil society organizations, Ghanaians as a whole to seek the key role that women can play in the human resource development of Ghana.

“I see men as the challenge to this whole thing and I do not understand why, I am a man, but I keep on saying it as we keep on claiming that they are our mothers and without them we are not there. If you conduct research anywhere and you ask any males to tell you both of the parents who supported his growth it is the mother, but how come that same mother is not being given that opportunity to lead?”

Again, I don’t understand, how married men would want to carry the whole load when the woman want to take part of the load from us, “I don’t understand”.

“I know the young men before they marry now want to ask the woman, if you are working, they want to know where she is working. Things would change soon”.

In addition, he pointed out that out of that, twelve (12) countries in Africa have met the UN 30 percent representation of females in Parliament with Rwanda leading by 61 percent, Ghana 14.5 percent, “yet we claim to be a model of democracy in Africa, I think it is horrible”.

And called for more effort to work better and together with the political parties to look at the Ghanaian laws, expressing his supports to the quota system.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Rt. Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin is scheduled to speak on digitization and borderless education in the wake of COVID-19 at a 5th GIMPA Alumni lecture series on Thursday, June 17, 2021.

The event is on the theme: ‘The sustainability of higher education in post-pandemic times; a celebration of GIMPA.

The Speaker disclosed this when a group of United Nations agencies in Ghana paid a courtesy call on him in Parliament.

According to the Speaker one of the key areas he would want to emphasis on is digitization in borderless education, and he believes it is the way to go in order to catch up with the lost in open university of higher education.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Rt. Hon Sidie Mohamed Tunis has said Ghana’s Speaker, Rt. Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin is in support of the election of lawmakers by direct universal adult suffrage.

“I told the Speaker about our vision of direct election taking effect as soon as possible and I am pleased to say the Speaker himself was very supportive”, he said in an interview.

  According to him when he called on the Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, they spoke on a wide range of issues but more importantly was the issue of the relationship between the Ghanaian and ECOWAS Parliament.

Speaker Tunis was accompanied by Secretary-General John Azumah and Leader of the Liberian delegation to the Community Parliament, Edwin Melvin Snowe Junior on Monday, June 14, 2021, when he paid a courtesy call on Ghana’s Speaker.

Mr. Tunis further noted that they came to inform the Ghanaian Speaker about the upcoming delocalised meeting of the ECOWAS Parliament toward the end of July 2021 and an Extraordinary meeting in September 2021.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament’s Standing Committee on, Political Affairs, Peace, Security, and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Edwin Melvin Snowe Junior has said the crisis in Mali should not be left alone for the Commission to deal with, Parliament should get involved.

According to him, this would help Parliament to properly understand what is happening in Mali and the best way to accommodate the situation with regard to the coup.

“I would be the last person, to want to sit in ECOWAS Parliament with someone who was hand-picked by a military junta to come and represent the good people of Mali. I am fundamentally opposed to that. Parliament would have to get more proactive in the resolution of the crisis to enable them to have informed decisions to move forward”.

In an interview as to how best to deal with insurgencies in the West African sub-region, Senator Snowe noted that it is the reason why the Authority of Heads of States and Government are involved, and they meet either two or three times in a year.

Again, there is the need to continue the conversation and maintain with the sanctions being put on Mali which would serve as a deterrent for other member states who would want to follow the bad example of Mali by organising a coup.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com/Abuja

Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament Rt. Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin has said the time is ripe for Ghana and the Switzerland to transition their diplomatic ties to a level that would guarantee exchange of expertise in Statecraft and governance.

According to him, as a budding democracy, there was a lot for Ghana to learn from the Swiss to help deepen the country’s diplomatic credentials and deliver the needed development to the people.

He further noted that, the effort, was an important feat that will add up to the country’s already attained feat in advancing democracy in Africa.

The Speaker made this call when the Swiss Ambassador to Ghana Philip Stalder paid a courtesy call on him in Parliament.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afiriyie Akoto has revealed government has procured Six Hundred Million Ghana Cedis to improve the cocoa sector in the country.

He explained that, this money is meant to pay One Thousand Ghana Cedis per hectare to cocoa farmers affected by diseases and overaged cocoa trees in order to cut affected cocoa trees down and replace them with a high breed cocoa seedling, that would be ready for harvesting maximum in three years.

The minister made this known when he appeared before Parliament to answer some questions filed by members of Parliament seeking to know plans made by government as form of compensation for farmers whose cocoa farms are affected by diseases and are been cut down.

According to him Ghana’s cocoa production capacity is one point eight million hectares, and forty per cent of that is affected by swollen shoot disease and some are over aged between forty and fifty years old and their yields are non-economic.

And government has gone to the African Development Bank in cooperation with other European Banks for the facility to help cocoa process in Ghana and also to build warehouses in other to accommodate addition stocks.

At a press briefing after answering questions on the floor of the House he told journalists that regions affected by the disease including Western, Eastern and Volta Region would have the cocoa tress cut and replaced with new improved seedlings from the Cocoa Research Institute that are high yielding.

He further noted that farmers would be compensated with a thousand Ghana cedis on every acre of farm land that would be cut out and in the Western Region where most of the farmers do not own the land, the land owners are compensated to ensure that there is no disruption in the arrangement.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Speaker of Parliament, RT. Hon. Alban Sumani Bagbin on June 12, 2021 led Parliament to plant over 100 tree seedlings in some selected areas in the capital

The exercise is in line with the observation of the “Green Ghana Project” which targets the planting of 5 million trees across the country.

Addressing the Parliamentary staff and the media at the forecourt of parliament before the tree planting exercise, the Speaker said the Green Ghana project is an initiative of President, Nana Akufo Addo, adding that by this initiative, they are making investments into the future, and commended the National Investment Bank for their partnership with Parliament in achieving this feat.

He described the project as a special opportunity for all of us to recover over time our loss in this area caused by our own destructive practices, indicating that not only have we degraded the natural environment God gave us, but also depleted our forest reserves.

He said, the whole globe is now faced with desertification, drought, irregular rain pattern, and all its attendant challenges including food insecurity, and it is time to confront these challenges.

He called for policies that are socially just, economically viable, and ecologically sustainable, and indicated that the programme seeks to workout a formula for economic trees including timber, Wawa, mango, rosewood, cashew, and shea trees for planting.

The Speaker also noted that by committing to this exercise, “we are not going to plant the trees and walk away, indeed we are encouraged to nurse, nurture, and monitor them in a manner to ensure the progress of these trees.”

The Speaker was joined by deputy Speakers, Clark to Parliament, and Deputy Clarks in the tree planting exercise.

Ghanamps.com