The Minister for National Security, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah has entreated the Majority and Minority caucuses in Parliament to adopt joint-problem solving and consensus building approaches to ensure that House does not become a destructive force against Ghana’s development.
He pointed out that the unprecedented composition of the current Parliament if not well managed, can trigger adversarial politics that will be unhealthy for the country’s democracy.
Mr Kan-Dapaah gave the advice when he addressed Members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association at a workshop held in Accra on Monday.
“It is worth noting that 2022 marks the thirtieth (30th) year of Ghana’s fourth Republican Constitution. Yet, as you may all be aware, the current Parliament, which is the 8th legislature of the Fourth Republic finds itself in what I refer to as a parliamentary crisis, unprecedented in the history of the country.
“If Ghana were to be practising the purest form of the Westminster system of governance, its current parliament would have been described as a near-hung parliament”, the National Security Minister noted.
According to him, the near-hung nature of the 8th parliament of the Fourth Republic, where none of the two major political parties in the country can claim an overwhelming majority in the House, introduces a strange phenomenon to Ghana’s democracy.
“Unsurprisingly, the early days of the journey along this unfamiliar path has been rough and turbulent, occasioning unpleasant politics of rancour and fistfights, and ultimately, threatening to undo the democratic gains made thus far”, he bemoaned.
Mr Kan-Dapaah has therefore appealed to the two main political parties in Parliament to collaborate in the interest of the nation devoid of extreme partisanship and foot-dragging on issues of national importance.
Members of the majority and minority caucuses have been in tempestuous disagreements on some national issues since the beginning of the 8th Parliament, sometimes, leading to fisticuffs.
This, embarrassing conduct, Mr Kan-Dapaah noted, does not promote consensus-building and national development.
