The Minority in Parliament has hinted it will not allow the government to rush the House through a €140 million facility to construct an interchange and ancillary facilities in Suame in the Ashanti Region.
“Members of Parliament (MPs) still do not have enough copies of the loan agreement to peruse and consider because it was laid on Tuesday but as we speak nobody has got a copy, the question is, has it actually been laid? We are just hoping that nobody comes to tell us within one day we should read the documents and pass it,” it cautioned.
The agreement was laid before the House just a day after some residents of Suame protested and nearly attacked Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame Constituency in the Ashanti Region.
Kwame Agbodza, Minority Spokesperson on Roads and Transport, insisted that Parliament needed more than a week to consider the content of the Bill and alleged that the protest in Suame may have been staged to force the government to act.
“If that is not the case, the Inspector General of Police must cause the arrest of the protesters just as they went after Francis-Xavier Sosu, MP for Madina Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, who also organised demonstration over poor roads in his constituency,” he said.
He alleged that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) staged the attack on the Majority Leader, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu in his constituency and the attack was planned by the party to fast-track the loan approval for the 4-tier interchange at Suame and asked the public to disregard it.
Mr Agbodza urged them to ignore the so-called demonstration at Suame regarding bad roads since it was planned and executed by the NPP to fast track the approval of millions of euros to build a 4-tier interchange at Suame.
The government on July 19, laid a commercial agreement in Parliament for the construction of the Suame Interchange and ancillary works which has been referred to the Finance Committee of Parliament for consideration and report back to the House and laid by a Deputy Minister for Finance, Abena Osei-Asare.
This was barely 24 hours after residents almost attacked Mr Kyei Mensah-Bonsu over the poor nature of the roads which prompted a hostile reception for him on Monday and some of the angry residents threw various items in his direction and hooted at him which took the timely intervention of the Police to calm tension and shield him from the residents after he attempted to address them.
