The People’s National Convention (PNC) said it was frivolous for Members of Parliament (MPs) to engage in an edifice of comfort to provide for themselves a new chamber rather than address issues that afflict their constituencies.
“When our constituencies are in need of roads, hospitals, schools and other basic necessities of life to improve upon their living conditions, our MPs are bent on sourcing loans to building a new chamber,” Mr Bernard Monah, Chairman of the PNC has said.
Describing the move as selfish and inward looking, the PNC National Chairman said the MPs should use the loans being sought for to address the plight of Ghanaians.
Mr Monarh who was speaking on what he said was issues of critical national importance, said the PNC joins all Ghanaians to reject the idea of building of this new parliamentary chamber which is only meant to provide comfort and luxury for the MPs to the detriment issues that needed attention.
The PNC, he said condemned in no uncertain term the manner in which security brutalised people who attempt to speak on the matter of the parliamentary chamber matter citing the case of Mr Ernesto Yeboah and others who were arrested last Friday when he openly opposed the idea through the ‘Drop the Chamber’ campaign.
“Freedom of speech is not an abomination in Ghana,” he said, adding that we call on the security agencies to discontinue the charges against Ernesto Yeboah and others who have been charged, asking, since when has freedom of speech become a crime in this country.
Touching on the just ended limited voters registration exercise conducted by the Electoral Commission (EC), the PNC National Chairman said it was a total misuse of the public resources as far as the exercise was concerned, saying that as at yesterday (Sunday, July 7), at the close of the registration, thousands of Ghanaians were yet to beregistered.
This is because the EC had decided to be power unto itself without a listening ear to advice from stakeholders in the electoral process.
“The EC is not the only one in charge of the electoral process; the political parties are all stakeholders who play a key role in ensuring the success of the electoral system,” he said.
Continuing, imagine the EC decided to deploy 1,500 biometric verification devices which could not meet the huge demand of potential voters saying that the 21 days which were allotted were not exhausted at all the designated registration centres.
“Suddenly before you are aware, you are told next day that the exercise has ended at this station and it is now that you have to be chasing biometric machines to the next centre where you have now struggled to join those already there,” he stated.
BY NORMAN COOPER
