Author: Akumaa GhanaMPs

The Member of Parliament for Bongo Constituency and the former Communication Consultant for the Energy Ministry, Honourable Edward Bawa has attributed the ongoing ‘dumsor’ to lack of planning by the government.

According to him, the NDC administration left behind sufficient installed generational capacity and fuel to power the TICO, TACA, Akosombo, Asogli and Bui power plants to avoid unnecessary load shedding.

“It’s the maintenance being run on the plants that has plunge some parts of the nation in darkness. In any the government knew it was going to run maintenance, it should have put in interim measures to avoid dumsor but they were careless. They didn’t plan for alternative fuel sources,” He explained.

Discussing the ongoing power crisis on ‘State of Affairs’ on GHONE TV, the Honourable member indicated that the ongoing power crisis is not as a result of generational problem but fuel. He explained that one of the strategies the NDC adopted to stabilize the power crisis was due to its ability to have fuel in stock for future use or to power the generational plants in critical time.

On his part, the new administration must be strategic and model the best practices by the NDC in the energy sector to have stock of fuel in place for use in most challenging times.

Honourable Bawa advised government that it should make provision for fuel security and improve the financial health of the energy sector by paying all its debts to keep the sector running.

“Government must implement the energy sector levies, ensure that all state institutions pay their electricity bills to help ameliorate the accumulated debt stock in the energy sector. But l doubt if government will implement the energy sector levy because l heard the government want to scrap it.”

He said, he cannot quantify the amount of money spent on ending dumsor due to private initiatives by private business and the Inter party partnerships.

Member of Parliament (MP) for the Keta Constituency Richard Quarshigah is accusing President Akufo-Addo of illegal conduct in the creation of new ministries and re-alignment of others.

According to Mr. Quarshigah, the president’s failure to publish an executive instrument on the new ministries before announcing their creation makes the move illegal.

He says the Civil Service Amendment Act 2011 requires that: “subject to the constitution, the president may by an executive instrument published in the gazette, establish a ministry or re-designate a ministry.”

Mr. Quarshigah says he has written letters to the Ghana Publishing Corporation and the corporation has replied explaining that the president has not sent to it executive instruments on the creation of the new ministries, hence the illegality.

“This makes all the new ministries he has created a nullity and all the ministries that have been re-aligned a nullity. Mr. Speaker, I could have chosen to g to court but I don’t want to cause this nation a colossal loss of money,” he said on Friday during parliament’s debate on the state of the nation address delivered by the president to the house on Tuesday.

“My checks even as at this morning indicate that Tuesday was when an executive instrument was sent to the Ghana Publishing Corporation and withdrawn same day to be re-submitted.

“As we speak, the Ghana Publishing Company has not received an E.I. from the presidency, neither has it been published in the gazette,” Mr. Quarshigah added.

NewPatriotic Party (NPP) MP for Okaikoi Central Patrick Yaw Boamah is, however, challenging the claim.
He told parliament: “The president has not created a ministry. He has appointed ministers responsible for specific focus areas.

Those are not ministries. I find his presentation to the house very misleading.”

But Mr. Quarshigah tells Joy news there is more than enough evidence in the public domain to back his claim that new ministries have been created and old ones re-aligned.

He is asking the president to quickly ‘do what is right’ and cause the publication of an executive instrument which will clearly spell out details on the new ministries.

It would be recalled that the president after taking over power announced the appointment of 46 ministers to head a number of ministries including the Ministry for Zongo and Inner City Development, and the Ministry for Sanitation and Water Resources.

Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Mubarak-Muntaka, is calling on the rest of African countries to boycott all South African products on their markets.

The call, he noted, is to protest against the xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals, especially, sons and daughters of Africa by South Africans.

He believes that such call if embraced and action well executed, the South African people will begin to “feel the heat at home” and start doing the right thing.

According to Mubarak-Muntaka who is also a member of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), his search indicates that there are more South African businesses in the rest of the African countries than any other nationals on the continent.

Therefore, a boycott of South African products will send a clear signal that Africa will no more entertain such barbaric acts from the South Africans.

He made this call on the floor of Parliament Friday, February 24, 2017, when contributing to a statement made by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey over the xenophobia attacks.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has launched a scathing attack on the Minority caucus, saying they behaved like ‘over pampared kids’ when President Akufo Addo delivered his first State of the Nation Address.

According to him, the Minority’s disruptive heckling of the president soon after he begun his address was most unfortunate, adding that by their attitude, they gave themselves nuisance value.

The Minority in Parliament minutes after the President started his address burst into singing their own version of Kofi Kinaata’s hit song “confessions”, appealing to ex President Mahama to come to the rescue of Ghanaians by helping to “steer the country’s wheels”as it appears President Akufo-Addo is tired already just over a month of being in office.

The Majority Leader, Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu in an interview with Kasapa News, condemned the behaviour of the Minority side, saying that does not help in building a good image for the caucus.

“What I found surprising was that, a deputy Minority Chief Whip who should have known better by ensuring there was order in the chamber was rather thick in the affair conducting the caucus in their disturbance. It took Second Deputy Speaker and former Majority leader, Hon. Alban Bagbin to go and ask the Minority members to stop being unruly. I think he was himself embarrased.”

But Deputy Minority Chief Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim in a sharp response, stated that Hon. Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has no moral right to question the behaviour of the Minority when he himself supervised worst action from his side when he was the Minority Leader.

“I’m shocked by what I hear the Majority Leader saying…was he not the one who led his side to wear mourning clothes to Parliament House amidst the showing of red cards, when late President Mills was delivering his state of the nation address? Is the Chamber of Parliament a funeral home? He’s the leader of the house…when the Majority side first started singing, was he a choirmaster at the time? Ahead of every presentation of the State of the Nation address, every Leader meets his side and talks to them to comport themselves…ask him if he did that, Hon Ibrahim quizzed?

The Member of Parliament for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has hinted that the president will use his ‘State of the Nation Address’ today to make key policy announcements that will give hope to the Ghanaian people and not to chastise the previous government.

He indicated that the State of the Nation Address will be a reflection of Ghana’s status and the direction that it will be heading to in the days ahead.

“We as a political party have made a commitment to depart from the old trend of attacking our opponents. Indeed this is what we have being doing since we came into office. The president’s State of the Nation Address is not for blame games. Where necessary he will speak about the realities on the ground but he will speak broadly on key parts of our national life and how to tackle the economic challenges that we find ourselves in,’ Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah stated.

Giving clues to what people should expect from the State of the Nation Address today on ‘State of Affairs’ on GHONE TV last night, he said the president will talk about his strategy to ending the energy crisis, how to invest in agriculture to create employment and increase exports and how to make quality education accessible  to all.

According to him, improving the railway sector is also key to the president’s development agenda adding that his administration has a clear strategy on how to execute that project for private sector to put in their capital and indicated that the right model has already been developed for this project.

His co panellist, Dr. Kojo Pumpuni Asante, the Senior Research Officer for Centre for Democratic Development shared his expectations on the program ahead of the state of the nation address.

“l expect the government to show how it is going to stabilize the macro economy for investment, fix unemployment and erratic power supply, show how it is going to deal with corruption and stabilize inflation and all other economic indicators,” Dr. Pumpuni stated.

To him, Ghana is largely an informal sector full of farmers and petty traders which suggests that many people are more concerned about transport fares, utility tariffs and prices of commodities so government must subsidized these things send the right signal that it cares about the people in its decision to steer growth and development.