Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu
The Minority in Parliament yesterday expressed serious concerns about the creation and allocation of a start-up capital of GH¢1million to each of the 42 new districts which the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) announced it had created.
President Mills’ 2012 budget had indicated that “as part of NDC’s commitment to deepening democracy and local development, 42 new districts have been created and GH¢1,000,000 as start-up capital per district has been provided to meet their initial infrastructural needs”.
However, the Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has condemned the allocation of the resources, slamming President Atta Mills for condoning such an illegality.
“As far as I know, no district has been created and therefore the allocation of money to them is a complete illegality”, the Minority Leader argued, expressing regret that this was happening “under the headship of professor of law”.
According to him, new districts could only be created through legislative processes by Parliament, stating that as far as he was aware, the issue of the creation of new districts had not been brought to the House for consideration.
Buttressing his argument, the Minority Leader quoted article 241 ((2) of the 1992 constitution, which states that “Parliament may by law, make provision for the redrawing of boundaries of districts or for reconstructing districts.
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who is also the MP for Suame in Kumasi, raised the issue after Tourism Minister and Member of Parliament for North Dayi, Akua Sena Dansua, in contributing to the debate on the budget, said the elevation of her constituency into a new district and the GH¢1million for infrastructure would create more jobs and bring money into the local economy.
In giving a ruling on the matter, First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho, who is also the NDC MP for Avenor Ave, agreed with the minority leader that the processes for the creation of the new districts had not yet been completed and therefore the districts could not be said to have been created.
He however asked the Minority Leader to withdraw the comments that an illegality was being perpetuated under the “headship of professor of law”, which was gracefully obeyed.
Later, Ms. Sena Dansua described the budget as “the best budget in the whole of her life”, saying its implementation would have a positive impact in the lives of Ghanaians.
According to the minister, tourism was a fledging sector with multiplier effects on the growth of other sectors of the economy.
She however bemoaned the budgetary allocation to the Tourism Ministry, crying for more resources to address the huge challenges confronting the sector in order to ensure accelerated growth and development of the economy.
The former Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs as well as Youth and Sports said although the hotel and restaurant sub-sector of tourism had registered a negative 11 percent growth rate in 2011, as against the targeted 13.5 percent growth achieved in other areas in the sector, it had made up for negative growth rate.
According to her, investors in the tourism industry were now shifting to the real estate sector, which had seen some massive growth, envisaging that the growth in the oil and gas sector would also have a positive impact on the tourism sector in the country.
By Awudu Mahama