The Socialist Movement of Ghana has observed that the polarisation in Parliament can no longer suffice the nation’s current dispensation.
“The time for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to build consensus for the country’s progress, growth and development is now,” it said.
Kwesi Pratt Jnr., the General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, noted that the current composition of the House-137 NPP Members of Parliament (MPs) and 137 NDCs MPs and an Independent candidate was evident that the time of “winner takes it all” was not acceptable by the electorates.
At an event to commemorate the 56 years of the overthrow of the country’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, he indicated that it had become necessary for both sides of the House of Legislation to bury their political differences and find ways of working and thinking together to foster peace, unity and harmony among themselves to propel the business of the House for national cohesion, progress, growth and development.
“Today, our country is badly polarised and this polarisation finds expression in our Parliament, the reality today is simply that the winner takes-it-all politics cannot work in our circumstance because this Majority-Minority mentality is an issue of the past and they must find ways of thinking and working together,” Mr Pratt Jnr lamented.
The call comes amid complaint by the Majority that Sarah Adwoa Safo, the MP for Dome-Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region, was ‘sabotaging’ the NPP, and buttressed earlier by Professor Justice Bawole, Governance Expert and Prof Peter Quartey, Economist, when the Minority rejected the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy.
The action by the Minority was said to be due to the introduction of the 1.75 percent Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy), and silence of the budget on the tidal waves that hit Keta in the Volta Region.
According to Mr Pratt, the fixation of Majority and Minority, how much was spent on one meeting of Parliament, having private jet for some MPs outside the country to come and vote, how much Parliamentarians were paid just to show up in Parliament, it is crazy and not working. -GNA
