Anger Over $200M ‘Chamber Pot’ …CDD, Stars, NDC, NPP, All Say No

A controversial decision by Ghana’s Parliament to construct a new chamber at the cost of $ 200 million has provoked a growing anger and fast spreading condemnation from a cross section of Ghanaians, with some nicknaming the proposed chamber a “Chamber Pot” as a way of showing their disapproval. 

Interestingly, both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have publicly expressed their disapproval for the project but the Majority Leader, Ose-Kyei-Mensah Bonsu has hopped from one media interview to the other justifying why it makes perfect wisdom for Ghana to spend a amount of $ 200 million on the proposed new chamber.

NPP Says No

General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, on Thursday asked the leadership of Parliament to cancel the  project. He told Okay 101.7 that if this project is stopped, it will bring some respite to Ghanaians.

The NPP Chief Scribe however accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of playing double standards with the issue at stake: “You see members of the National Democratic Congress are just a bunch of hypocrites who do not want the country to develop. How can you agree in principle about a project and later come out to disagree on the same project?” he asked.

NDC Sys No

Meanwhile the NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia has said the money for the project can be used to provide basic amenities to the people of Ghana.

“It would be unconscionable in the face of these challenges for President Akufo-Addo to spend $ 200 million on a Parliamentary Chamber at a time when one already exists and is serving the needs of Parliament. Parliament only recently had the Job 600 project undertaken to provide decent offices for MPs. We are unable therefore to appreciate the basis upon which a new chamber should be buil”, Mr. Asiedu Nketia noted in a statement he signed on behalf of the NDC.

Member of Parliament for Odododiodio constituency, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye  has also expressed misgivings about the project: “”I was shocked at the news . . . this is not the time for leadership to come up with something like that. Our salaries are not enough. We are the least paid in West Africa.
In Africa, even Sudan MPs receive better pay than us . . . and so there was a need for a bit of sensitivity in thinking through something like this but”

Unreasonable–CDD-Ghana

Civil Society Organization, Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) says overtures by the government to construct a new 450-seat chamber for Parliament is unreasonable.

It said the country is bedeviled with a myriad of challenges begging for attention.

CDD-Ghana is the latest body to have added its voice to calls on the government to shelve the construction of the facility estimated to cause the tax payer some whopping $200 million.

Public Anger

Already, there is anger on social media and a march is planned for July 13, to oppose the erection of the building which many believe is completely unnecessary.

The new 450-seater capacity chamber, when built, will have a chapel, a mosque, an eatery, and gardens.

The current chamber being used by the 275 MPs, according to Sir David Adjaye who designed the new chamber will be converted into a Conference Centre.

But the CDD-Ghana in a statement issued in Accra yesterday by its  Communication Specialist, Efua Idan Atadja, said the public anger is justifiable in view of the other pressing needs awaiting the government’s attention.

It said “CDD-Ghana does not believe that construction of a new and expanded chamber at an estimated cost of $200m is reasonable or justifiable at the present time. In the face of the numerous basic needs facing communities across the country, including a lack of safe and decent physical structures, facilities, and fixtures for many basic schools, a chronic shortage of beds in public hospitals, the deplorable condition of many of the country’s roads, and sundry other basic infrastructural and material deprivations facing various populations of citizens, construction of a new edifice for Parliament is a clear case of misplaced priorities.”

Material Comforts

According to the CDD-Ghana, the construction of the proposed Chamber rather paints the picture of a political class that is either out of touch with the people’s everyday needs and struggles or is more concerned with providing for their own material comforts than with the existential needs of citizens and deprived communities across the country.

It noted that the Nana Akufo Addo’s “Ghana Beyond Aid” mantra would suffer a loss of credibility as long as scarce public resources continue to be spent on self-serving projects of the political class at the expense of the persistent and widespread developmental challenges and needs of the people.

CDD-Ghana emphasized that all things considered, Parliament is relatively well resourced at the present time and for the foreseeable future, in terms of its physical needs.

The Civil Society Organization rather noted that what Parliament requires is not a new chamber but the entrenchment of its constitutional mandate in governance.

MP’s Mandate

“What Parliament lacks but needs to make it a credible part of a system of constitutional checks and balances and a true policymaking partner to the Executive are not more fancy brick-and-mortar; what Parliament needs to assume its proper place in our governmental system are the appropriate institutional powers, prerogatives, and self-governing rules that would enable Members to initiate legislative solutions to public problems and exercise meaningful oversight of the Executive and public administration.

CDD-Ghana however, called on the leadership of Parliament, the Parliamentary Service and the government to heed to the justifiable citizen opposition to the proposed project and halt on-going preparations to construct a new legislative chamber or risk making “our democracy unpopular when we make needless expenses.”

 

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson