News:
Hon Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah
March 11, 2022
Parliament is still silent on the actual date the President Nana Akufo Addo would present the state of the nation address to parliament as enshrined in Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution.
The issue did not find space in the business statement presented to the House for the seventh week ending Friday, March 18, 2022.
Mr Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, the Member of Parliament for Ellembele raised the issue on the floor of the House when the Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business presented the Business Statement to the House.
He said they expect the president to follow the spirit of the Constitution and address the nation. “Mr. Speaker with all due respect, the president wants to do away with the constitutional requirement and change the date; he can go to the Supreme Court and change it”.
But the Majority Leader in his response said it is not true that the president is obligated to come to the House to deliver a state of the nation address, rather the president comes to the House to deliver a message on the state of the nation.
He emphasized that the constitution provides that “the president shall at the beginning of each session of parliament and before a dissolution of parliament deliver to parliament a message on the state of the nation”.
Mr Speaker, parliament at each session, and the session of parliament is the meetings that we have in a year, and ordinarily we have three meetings. The first meeting is the beginning of the session, so Mr Speaker we are still within the beginning of the session; people should avert their minds to this.
He thus said “the president will come when he will come in this session, in this meeting at the beginning of the session”.
Ghanamps.com