Samuel Akumatey
Ho, Dec. 17, GNA – Mr Alban S. Bagbin, Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, has backed calls for a national development plan to provide a solid development line for the Nation.
He said that could be made possible through a constitutional review that would prove the way for such a national development plan, now a sought intervention by many.
The Speaker was addressing a public forum organised in Ho by Parliament as part of its 30th anniversary celebration.
He said a national development plan would grant the nation a common sense of purpose, and should be supported by all.
“Calls for a national development plan are apt. When we all buy into it, we will be moving in one direction. Not that NDC comes to power, and change direction NPP also comes and change direction.
“We all must support the revision of the 1992 Constitution. We need to go through it to share and distribute the power”.
The speaker called on Ghanaians to celebrate the survival of the nation’s stable democracy and said the time to reconsider the national document was due.
Mr Bagbin spent time recounting the journeys towards the establishment of the fourth republican parliament and said the people must appreciate the feat.
Togbe Afede XIV, the Agbogbomefia of Asogli State, who chaired the forum, commended the Speaker “for taking tremendously bold decisions to make parliament effective against all odds”.
He noted that although the Constitution survived the times, the inability to place it under review dulled the shine.
“The constitution must be changed to respond to changes in our environment. So much has changed- ourselves as a people have changed. Our inability to adjust the Constitution to change is perhaps a failure”.
“It will require a good leader, very nationally oriented who wants to change the Constitution”.
Togbe Afede said the nation required fair and honest leadership that would drive the country.
The anniversary has been designed as a nationwide event with public forums, engagements with traditional leaders and the media, and ended with a mock Parliament in Ho.
The 30th Anniversary celebration was on the theme “ Thirty (30) Years of Parliamentary Democracy Under the Fourth Republic: The Journey Thus Far.”
GNA