News:
February 19, 2020
The crusade to get more female lawmakers into the yet to be inaugurated fifth Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was high on the agenda during the latter part of the life span of the fourth Parliament.
In an interview with the Administrative Head of the sub-regional Community Legislature, John Azumah on the female representation on the reconstituted list presented by fourteen out of the fifteen countries, he said: “the list is not encouraging”.
He indicated that the names of females in a current list of eighty (80) presented out of one hundred and fifteen (115), it was obvious they have a long way to go.
The Secretary-General also noted that the Supplementary Act says Parliaments are encouraged to give one-third (1/3) of their delegation to the female parliamentarians invariably this is not respected. There are so many issues involved in this in allocating positions especially involving our female folks”.
According to him, though men always talk about supporting women, “hardly do we practice it”.
Mr. John Azumah further confirmed to Ghanamps.com that in the reconstituted list of Ghana, there is only one female in the name of Mrs. Ama Pomaa Boateng.
Ghana, for example, has eight membership but there is only one female, “even if they were not given three slots, two should have been the case but a blind eye has been turned to that, and the same applies to other countries”.
He further revealed that for the allocation of the female MPs it is not being respected as in the regulations.
In an early interview with Leader of the Gambian delegation in the fourth Legislature Mr. Kebba K. Barrow he pointed out their reconstituted list to the fifth Parliament has only one female madam Fatoumatta Njai out of the five.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com