The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, has described as baseless opposition to the building a new chamber for Parliament.
Many including the Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA) observed that constructing new parliamentary should not be a priority for Ghana.
“I think we have a number of burning priorities as a nation. Especially given that this is coming on the back of the hue and cry that characterised the cost of the refurbishment and renovations that took place in the current chamber when Rt. Hon. Doe Adjaho was Speaker of the 6th Parliament,” ACEPA’s Executive Director Rasheed Draman told Accra based Joy FM.
But in a rare appearance on morning TV on Wednesday, 03 July 2019 Mensah Bonsu who is also the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs defended the need for the new chamber. According to him, the argument that the new chamber is not of priority is baseless.
Speaking on GHOne TV’s GH Today, he said: “As a country, we are not out of the woods yet in spite of the quality…quantity of various shades of improvement that we are adding to the lives and living standards of our people. We are not there yet. We are not out of the woods, but tell me, we do know that the basic needs of a human being to start with is food, clothing and shelter. Whenever have we been able to achieve this before we started building our stadia or our national theatre? Food, clothing and shelter, have we been able [provide it completely]?”
“There’s a housing deficit close to two million and yet we are building roads. Between roads and housing, the priority should be on housing. We build roads, we build schools, and we build health facilities. They are all to inure to the quality of life—the standard of living of our people.
“So, let’s not really say that not until we satisfied the basic human needs others things are luxurious. They are not…they are not, because as I said then we should begin by saying that before we build a school we should ensure that every Ghanaian has three square meals. Even the United States of America… can we say that every citizen of the United States of America has three square meals? And yet they have all these things that we so much enjoy. Let nobody tell me that not until maybe we are able to provide clothing for everybody, not until we are able to provide adequate housing to everybody these other things are luxuries.”
Source: Star News
