GHANAS STATE HOUSE
TURNS INTO A CAR PORT.
The forecourt of the Parliament of Ghana for almost a year now has been
turn into a car port. Hundreds of mostly white Hyundai salon cars have been
parked at the car park for more than one year now without any accountability to
the public who is ultimately, the tax payer.
The primary mission of parliament as stipulated in the 1992 Constitution
is to enact and formulate laws.
Laws are also very important in
the development of every nation, therefore the environment where these laws are
to be enacted must be neat, clean and safe for the legislatures who have been
mandated by law to represent the citizenry in this regard.Therefore, turning
the forecourt into a car port is not only an eye saw but also a dint of the
entire parliament itself. Again,
it defeats the main purpose of parliament and its own business of law making.
Initial Investigations conducted by this reporter indicated that the cars
parked at the forecourt of parliament were from Masloc and was part of the
package given to the public as a sort of relief to SMEs, but this proved to be
otherwise.
In my candid opinion, there are more questions than answers for this
observation. Some of the questions on the lips of some Ghanaians are, “Are
these cars parked to be given to Members of Parliament or perhaps to be given
to their cronies in the various constituencies they represent.”
Furthermore, one fundamental question in all of this is who is paying for
the maintenance of these cars, since they are definitely under the mercies of
the weather and nature as a whole.
Speaking to the Public Affairs Director of Parliament, Mr. Jones Kuglenu,
he states that,“ Parliament does not know anything about the Hyundai cars ”,
neither does the Public Affairs secretariat know how come the cars were parked
there for close to a year now, but was quick to add rather ironically that it
must have been brought there “by the state.” What that means sounds rather
interesting.
He went further to reiterate that the cars may have been brought there by
the Ministry of Health, Masloc, etc since the household of the State House consist
of the Ministry of Chieftaincy, Parliament, State Protocol and State House.
My further search into the matter revealed that the Controller of
Household, Madam Doris Quaye could be of help so I sought to speak
to her.
Speaking to Madam Doris Quaye, Controller of State Protocol on Monday,
February, 6, 2012 she mentioned that she being a civil servant she could not
answer such an issue and that I should direct my questions through a letter to
the Office of the President.
Is it therefore, the case that people mandated to work on behalf of the
government are simply unable to give
responds to basic public issues and concerns or
is it a deliberate attempt to
frustrate journalists who work in the best interest of the public and serve as
a watchdog to these
institutions. Must the president be everywhere to serve the good people of this
country, what happened to delegation of power?
-Story by Malise Otoo.
