The Member of Parliament for North Tongue, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has berated the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, over his defence of the proposed Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) for the registration of new voters.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, in his defence of the proposed C.I., refuted suggestions that C.I. if passed could lead to the disfranchisement of voters.
According to him, not all eligible voters are able to get on voters’ registers, as some of them one way or the other are not registered.
“There has never been an instance that some Ghanaians have not been disenfranchised in the voting,” he said while addressing the press at Parliament on Wednesday.
Ablakwa could not believe that the Majority Leader posited that it is normal for some people to disenfranchise.
Speaking in an interview on Good Morning Ghana, on Friday, monitored by GhanaWeb, the North MP said that Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu as the leader of Ghana’s Parliament should be the one fighting to ensure that all eligible voters are registered.
“For a country that fought slavery, a country that fought colonialism, a country that is celebrated globally for being on the frontiers for expanding fundamental human rights… that country and its leaders must not be heard today like our majority leader is saying today.
“I’m so appalled and disgusted by him saying that people are always going to be disenfranchised. You didn’t say that. That is not the mindset,” he said.
He added that the Majority Leader's comment is an affront to the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
Ablakwa also refuted the suggestion by the majority leader that the laying of the C.I. by the EC is a government business and can’t be stopped by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin.
He explained that the EC is an independent body and it can not be dictated to by the government and therefore its proposals to Parliament can not be considered as a business of the government.
Watch the interview below:
You can also watch this episode of People & Places here:
