Author: Kwaku GhanaMPs

Majority Leader Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said the sole use of the Ghana card as registration for voter identification card has come to sanitize and purify the Ghanaian system as currently various institutions are recognizing the integrity of the National Identification Authority and the Ghana card.

According to him the call by his colleagues in the Minority pushing for birth certificate, national health insurance card and passport to be reintroduced is untenable, stating that with the NIA system of acquiring Ghana card, one is required to swear an oath before a commissioner when need be. And the sanction are well spelt out such that even ten years after, if you are found out not to tell the truth you will go to prison and you would be disenfranchised eternally.

“So people are afraid the EC system is a bit loose, you go and I know this person, we are in the same house, I know him to be a Ghanaian, I swear before myself and the ground that I know him and that is all”.

Addressing members of the Parliamentary Press Corps on Thursday, March 2, 2023, he further noted that when the drivers licenses was taken off it did not serve as a restraint on citizens right to register to vote, same with birth certificates.

He added that a number of cards issued in the lead up to the 2012 elections, the enactment came into force February 2012 at the time less than ten thousand across the country Ghanaians had been issued with the Ghana Identity cards against the voting population of twelve million Ghanaians in the 2016 elections.

The then EC Chair Charlotte Osei could not resort to the Ghana card, as less than two hundred and twenty thousand Ghana card was issued against a targeted voter population of close to fifteen million Ghanaians in the lead up to the 2016 elections.

The registration exercise done by the EC did not rely solely on the Ghana card despite the fact that they used it at the time; those who had Ghana card could go with it to register but said they did not rely on it solely for the purposes of registration. The EC accordingly decided to resort to it as one of the instrument of identification of Ghanaian citizens.

At that time Ghanaians with the Ghana card had significantly improved such that at the time of the 2020 elections, EC had informed Ghanaians that by February 2020 the number of Ghanaians who had been issued with the card total just about under seven million against the voting population of close to seventeen million.

So, they could not rely on it solely for the purposes of registration but they used it as one of it and indeed by December 2020 when the voting took place the number had improved from seven million to ten million.

The NIA’s issuance of cards, their system is much more better than that of the EC, “why do I say this; in the compilation of the register of the NIA, it came to light of the number that had registered on their role, ninety five thousand nine hundred and forty two people attempted to register multiple times and were found”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, on Tuesday, February 28, 2023, told Parliament that Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, warned the West African nation against the ‘begging bowl’ and went on to predict that a deaf ear to his warning will one day plunge the country into economic mess.

Alas, 57 years down the line after his overthrown, Dr. Nkrumah’s prediction has come to pass with Ghana now classified as a high risk debt distress country which needed an external help to salvage it from crashing.

“The Great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah predicted that the begging bowl will only lead us into indebtedness-well we now know”, the deputy Minority Leader noted while eulogizing Dr. Kwame Nkrumah on the 57th anniversary of his overthrown on February 24, 1966.

A begging bowl is a term used in reference to an earnest appeal for financial help. The Collins Dictionary also explains that, “if a country or organization approaches other countries or organizations with a begging bowl, it asks them for money”.

To Hon. Buah, if Dr. Nkrumah’s predecessors had heeded to the advice of the former Ghanaian leader and also continued to build on his vision or policies and initiatives, Ghana and the rest of the African continent would have been a better place to live in that what the citizenry are experiencing today.

As at September 2022, Ghana’s public debt was GHS67.4billion. Out of this amount, 42% was domestic debt while 58% was external debt, according to records by the Bank of Ghana.

This represents more than 100% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is hoping to bring the ratio down to 55% by 2028 should the country gets the external support that it is seeking for.

Ghana is currently before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) seeking for a three-year bailout program worth US$3billion.

To Hon. Buah who is also the NDC MP for Ellembelle, the hard lesson Ghanaians must learn from the Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah’s overthrow is “never to allow themselves to be deceived into discarding great leaders”, stressing that without the leadership of Dr. Nkrumah, Ghana lost its vision as a country and has since been roaming around for 57 years for the answers to her developmental agenda.

“We never appreciate the value of water, until the well runs dry”, he quoted the American writer, scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, in support of his advice to Ghanaians.

He said it was through the leadership of Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah that the Tema Harbour and Tema Motorway were constructed. That notwithstanding, it was through the policies and initiatives of the former Ghanaian leader that the Ghanaian currency, the Ghanaian Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC), and the Volta River Project were all established.

Ghanamps.com

The Minority on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 led by its leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has given indications that they would hold forum in collaboration with their party the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as to why they are kicking against Electoral Commission’s introduction of a constitutional instrument (CI)to make Ghana Card the sole document to acquire voters ID.

According to him this would afford Ghanaians the opportunity to understand the issues better and noted that the CI if implemented would undermine the Ghana’s democracy and disturb the peace of the country.

And further pointed out that some of the groups to engage are the Ghana’s development partners, faith based organisations to get them appreciate the issues better.

His press conference comes at the back of the EC and the National Identification Authority briefing Parliament on Tuesday, February 28, 2023.

 “That is why under the current C.I 91 as amended by CI 126, Ghanaian passport and guarantor system are allowed as evidence of citizenship.

And it’s important to remind the EC headed by Madam Jean Mensah that the Commission is enjoined by the constitution to advance the right to vote not introduce any law that seeks to curtail same.

The NIA which is responsible for issuance of the Ghana Card has admitted that there is a back log of millions of Ghanaians who are yet to be issued the Ghana Card; and in addition three point five million 3.5m have been locked up in bonded warehouse due to its indebtedness of one point five billion to a private partner of the NIA, which has contracted loans from the banks to undertake printing of the cards.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament (MP) for Bawku Central Mahama Ayariga has expressed worry over comments by the Majority Leader Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu that the business of the Electoral Commission (EC) is a government business.

According to him since the EC is an independent body, anything they do should be seen as coming from an independent body. He made this assertion in the wake of the EC briefing Parliament on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 on plans to work on a Constitutional Instrument that would see the Ghana Card as a sole document for getting the voters ID.

Responding to questions after the Minority organised a press conference to register their displeasure, of the Ghana Card being pushed as the sole document to acquire voters ID, he noted that the EC could have brought the CI long ago but did not do that.

“The EC has engaged us to make her case; we are also engaging you and the public to make our case why the Ghana Card should not be use as a sole document to get the voters ID”.

“EC is not government and government is not EC; this a consensus building process and I believe that it should have started at the political party level, because they have a major stake in voter registration but the evidence is that NDC as a political party was not involved in the deliberation leading to the production of the CI so we are bringing it up as Minority MPs for us to look at it”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

As part of its oversight duty in checking for value for money in the area of malaria control, the select committee on Health has embarked on its oversight tour to the Berekum East constituency in the Berekum Municipal Assembly.
Chairman of the Committee Dr. Nana Ayew Afriye noted that the oversight was to check how funds, the tax payers money was being applied in the aspect of malaria control.

According to him in the next two or three weeks they have a budget to approve for the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), and in it includes malaria control which goes to a private company which is good.

In a media briefing after touring some sites where the malaria control project is being embarked on in the Berekum Municipal Assembly, Dr. Ayew lauded the idea of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the malaria control project in which Zoomlion is spraying stagnant waters that breed mosquitoes in one hundred and five districts (105) out of the two hundred and sixty (261) districts in Ghana.

“We have mapped out regions and communities in the districts, so we needed to be sure the money that was given them, where it went and what they are doing. So that when they come back to us for some resources we have a reason to approve or disapprove of their request”.

As to the level of satisfaction of the project, he noted that the malaria focal person in Berekum Municipality says in three years after the collaboration with the malaria control programme cases of malaria in the Municipality was twenty two thousand last three years, last two years was nineteen thousand reported cases, and for last year it was sixteen thousand.

So, in his estimation there is gradual drop in the reported cases of malaria and the aspect of value for money is the overall component for the point of going to spray; and the number of people they are employing and the number of times they are supposed to do the spraying.

That is the period before raining season and through raining season to the end, “so we need go and put pen on paper, we need to have their schedule, we asked of it and they were not able to give us, they said they have it, I could not see it”.

Again, he pointed out that they are in Berekum to do their work; it may appear that they may be having results but scientifically they need to have a lot of things on paper when they look at it as a metrics, they can check list it; but that is not there.

So they are there, either to improve it, to stop it or to ascertain whether the communities have value for money in this. He stated that the team would have a board room discussion after the visit to know when is the best time for them to be doing the spraying.

According to the malaria control program they are supposed to be spraying from March through to October but as it is on the ground they spray the third or the fourth week of the month from June to October annually.

The spraying last for four weeks and it means if they go on the field today it would take another four weeks before they come in, in between they say they do desilting which is laudable, but noted that the output may be okay but the measure of the output to the needs of the objective is what they are looking for as representatives of the people.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Majority Leader Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has announced to Parliament that chair of the Electoral Commission madam Jean Mensah would be in the House to brief Committee of the whole on preparation to conduct the District Level elections and the Constitutional Instrument being worked on.

According to him the EC chair was outside the country at the ongoing Nigeria elections, when officials of the Commission established contact with her on Thursday, February 23, 2023 in view of the Minority side demanding to have her presence in the House before the Constitutional Instrument (C. I) could be discussed.

The Majority Leader got in touch with the Minority Leader if Committee of the whole could be held on Friday, February 24, 2023 but Dr. Ato Forson indicated to the Majority Leader that it was not possible because most of his members were going to pick forms to contest their primaries.

“It would not be wise for us to do that hence the EC should delay in coming for us to have the meeting on Tuesday, February, 28, 2023 so could not have space in the Business Statement and I have to provide the House with this information”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin has said in parliamentary democracy, alleged signs of mistrust should not be an excuse for a lawmaker to opt for physical fight.

According to him supposed mistrust should not be an excuse to use one’s strength to attack another person in the chamber that would undermine democracy.

“I would want to encourage the Minority that no matter what happens and as the Speaker said this should be the use of brain power”.

His comment did not go down well with the Minority side of the House, whose members started heckling, not also happy with the attitude of the Minority members pointed out to them he is on his feet and that is not the way to use the, “brain power”.

Again you get up quietly and catch the Speakers eye and more especially, when your colleagues in the Minority Leadership are on their feet you do not make noise, on our side we are quite to listen to them, he said.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com