Member of Parliament for South Dayi constituency, Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor, says OccupyGhana could have used other alternatives to make their statement on the Code of Conduct Bill.
According to the South Dayi MP, once the 14th February letter received a response that indicated that the government is no longer interested, they should have used other avenues.
OccupyGhana in a statement on Monday, July 24, divulged the timelines it has engaged the President Nana Akufo-Addo government on the Code of Conduct Bill but it’s proven futile.
The pressure group said the passage of the Bill will help check instances such as the one Madam Dapaah finds herself in but “the Government appears inexplicably unwilling or unprepared to approve the Bill and transmit it to Parliament for enactment.”
The group, therefore, urged individuals, fellow Civil Society Organisations, and the media, to join us in this campaign to ensure that Cabinet approves the Bill and forwards it to Parliament and that Parliament passes the Bill into law, all at the earliest times possible.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana on Tuesday, July 25, the South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor urged OccupyGhana to consider the Private Member’s Bill.
“As part of our business for this meeting, there’s a compendium of the activities that Parliament will engage in, in terms of the number of bills, motions, and questions to be considered, and among the bills to be considered is this bill; code of conduct for officer’s bill and this is a 2022 bill which had to have been worked on this year but I see some liturgy and I see that next year, the life of this parliament will come to an end,” he said.
Hence, the Member of Parliament’s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Committee said “if OccupyGhana has this background information, the point I am making is that they ought to have abandoned that path and taken the unbeaten path of private members bill so this can be done expressly.”
From his viewpoint, “we need to synchronize the existing code of conduct and anchor it in the constitutional provision regarding code of conduct for public officers for some designated public offers holders.”
A private Member’s Bill is proposed legislation introduced by a Member of Parliament (MP) in their capacity as MP, which is distinct from a Public Bill introduced by a minister of state on behalf of the executive.
Although the 1992 Constitution does not expressly confer power for the enactment of a Private Member’s Bill, there are sufficient provisions in the Constitution that impliedly confer this power. These provisions include Articles 93(2), 108, 22(2) and 185(3).
By: Akua Karle Okyere | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana
