Speaker Prof Mike Oquaye at the site
An amount of GH¢100 million has been provided by the government for the construction of additional offices for 22 Members of Parliament who do not have offices in the Job 600 Tower Block.
Other members of staff of the Parliamentary Service who do not have offices will also get offices in the new office block while a lounge for drivers of MPs and visitors, media office for journalists, printing room and office for the Marshall Department are also being constructed under the Parliament Enhancement Projects expected to be completed by December 2019.
The Speaker of Parliament, Prof Mike Oquaye made this known when he led members of the Parliamentary Service Board including the majority leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu; minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu and the Clerk of Parliament, Emmanuel Anyimadu to inspect the on-going projects on Thursday.
The speaker said apart from these projects, funds are being sought from China to construct a new chamber block with state of the art equipment for business of the House since the old block is too small for the large number of MPs.
He said the Parliamentary Service Board has spoken to three architects who will help in designing the new chamber block.
“We want to secure the premises of parliament and therefore want to have a parliamentary enclave with a serene environment so that if one is visiting parliament then he or she will know that this is a complete parliamentary enclave for Ghana,” he said adding that leadership of parliament is talking to government to release all buildings including the Banquet Hall and State Protocol offices close to parliament to be part of the enclave.
Commenting on the project after the inspection tour, the minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu said the minority caucus fully supports the initiative to enhance the physical infrastructure of parliament aimed at strengthening Parliament to promote democratic governance.
The majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, described the projects as highly significant for the work of Parliament.
The Resident Engineer, Ekow Bentsi-Enchill, who took the leaders round to inspect the projects promised to complete the projects on time.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr