Haruna Iddrisu and Prof Mike Oquaye, speaker of Parliament
Parliament yesterday approved Constitutional Instrument (C.I. 109) on the creation of six new regions, which was laid on October 30, this year, to pave way for referendum next month, amidst protest from the Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The newly created regions are Oti to be carved out of the Volta Region, Western North to be carved out of the Western Region, Bono East and Ahafo to be carved out of the Brong Ahafo Region and Savannah and North East from the Northern Region.
However, approval of the CI was characterized by protest by the Minority NDC which called for the publication of the report of the Justice Allan Brobbey Commission on the creation of the regions before the C.I. 109 could be approved by Parliament.
The Minority members, who were not happy with happenings in the House, eventually walked out of Parliament when the C.I. was finally approved.
The NDC accused the Speaker, Prof Mike Oquaye, of being disrespectful to Minority members and failing to register their protest during a debate on the proposed creation of new regions.
According to them, the Speaker once again failed to acknowledge their leaders when they rose on the floor of the House to make their arguments.
The Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, who led the protest, strongly argued that the report of the Justice Brobbey’s Commission forms the basis of C.I.109, and therefore it was justified for the report to be made available to MPs to enable them to make informed and meaningful contributions to it.
He said refusal to make the report available to members before the consideration and approval of its attendant C.I. was like asking a medical doctor to go to a theatre to perform an operation in darkness.
He said on page 39 of the CI 109, he realized that the creation of the Savannah Region was ethnocentrically driven since the composition of the region was based on ethnicity.
The minority leader also argued that including Chereponi, which is part of the Dagbon State in the North East Region under Mamprugu Kingdom is very repugnant to land ownership and detrimental to the geo-politics of the Northern Region.
He added if these things are not properly addressed, they could create problems for the stability of the country.
The Minister of Regional Reorganisation and Development, Dan Botwe, who is MP for Okere, said that the president has six months per the Constitution to either make the Brobbey report public or not with reasons, and that the president is within the law since the report was submitted to him on June 26, 2018.
He said that members of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, which is chaired by NDC MP for Bawku, Mahama Ayariga, were given copies to satisfy themselves that the Commission’s recommendations duly tally with that of the EC in the C.I. before the committee finally presented its report to the plenary for approval.
Mr. Botwe could not fathom why the minority leader was blaming the President for not publicizing the report of the Justice Brobbey Commission.
He said under Article 5 of the Constitution, the commission must present its report to the President of the Republic, who would in turn give it to the EC to prepare the C.I. for approval by Parliament and subsequent referendum on the creation, which was exactly what the president did.
The chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Mahama Ayariga, said initially members were tempted to go with the minority’s argument until someone also raised the issue of Article 278, which supersedes Article 5, adding that after the report of Justice Brobbey Commission was given to the members of the committee they became satisfied with all the recommendations and therefore submitted its report for Parliament to approve.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr