The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has stated that any attempt to construct a new parliamentary chamber is immoderate in the face of challenges when one exists, and serving the needs of Parliament.
“It will be unconscionable for the nation to spend $ 200 million on parliamentary chamber at a time parliament recently had Job 600 project undertaken to provide decent offices for Members of Parliament (MPs) and unable to appreciate basis upon which a new chamber should be built,” it said.
In a statement issued in Accra, the party noted that about 20 per cent of the citizenry could not have access to potable water are compelled to share dirty, infested water with animals, about 16 per cent of them are without access to electricity and sleep in darkness.
“There remain many roads that require urgent attention because of their deplorable state, school children study under trees or compelled to study in dilapidated structures, with three million Ghanaians living below the poverty line who cannot afford three square meals a day.
“We demand immediate cessation of plans to undertake the project since national resources must be channeled into projects, and expenditure have direct bearing on lives of the citizenry not grandiose and prestige projects of doubtful relevance,” the statement said.
However, the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has described as baseless opposition to the building, and maintained that “as a country, we are not out of the woods yet in spite of quality, quantity of various shades of improvement we are adding to the lives and living standards of our people.
“We are not there yet but tell me, we do know the basic needs of human being to start with are food, clothing and shelter, whenever have we been able to achieve this before we started building our stadia or our national theatre?
“There’s housing deficit close to two million yet we are building roads, priority should be on housing, we build roads, schools, health facilities to inure to quality of life, let’s not say until we satisfy basic human needs, other things are luxurious.
“They are not because we should begin by saying before we build a school, we should ensure the citizenry have three square meals, even the United States of America, can we say every citizen has three square meals? And yet have things they enjoy,” Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu alluded.
-starrfmonline.com
