Improve upon your attendance – Speaker tells MPs

By: Stephen Odoi-Larbi
The Speaker of Parliament, Tr. Hon. Justice Joyce Bamford-Addo, has urged Members of the House to improve upon their attendance to enable the legislature complete its business on time for the Fourth Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Fourth Republic.

'The present meeting will be hectic, as we have a lot of business to conduct. I trust Honourable Members will, as usual, continue to give the Chair and Leadership the needed cooperation, and improve upon their attendance to the House, to enable us complete our business on time,' calm-looking Bamford-Addo mused in her remarks.

She made this observation yesterday on the floor of Parliament, when welcoming the legislators to the House after the long break in which the members where engaged in the 40 days biometric registration exercise in their various constituencies.

According to the Speaker, although she was aware that the MPs did not have the opportunity to rest and invigorate themselves as they would have wished, as a result of the many pressures, including the biometric registration exercise, their engagement was a call to national service.

'As exhausting as your work has been, I wish to state that this is all about the call to national service as Members of Parliament, and sacrifices associated with it,' she urged.

During the period of sittings, the House would consider eighteen new bills that have been brought to its table, and which include the National Youth Employment Bill; National Sports Bill; Public Holiday Amendment Bill; National Youth Bill; Rent Bill and Gold Fund Bill.

The rest are; Integrated Aluminum Authority Bill, 2012; Tax Revenue Bill; Ghana Civil Aviation Amendment Bill; Public Officers Code of Conduct Bill; Enforcement of Foreign Judgment Bill; and Off-shore Petroleum (Health & Safety) Bill, 2012.

The House would also consider three bills – Intestate Succession Bill, 2009, Public Health Bill; 2011; and University of Professional Studies Bill, 2011) – that are at the consideration stage, while also considering those at the second reading, which include the Ghana AIDS Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2012 and Criminal Offences (Amendment) Bill.

Those at the committee stage are the Electoral Commission (Amendment) Bill 2009; Right to Information Bill, Property rights of Spouses Bill, 2009; General Health Services Bill; Traditional and Alternative medicine Bill; Health Professors Regulatory Bodies Bill; Development and   Classification of Films Bill, 2011; and National Health Insurance Bill 2011.

Instruments to be laid include Noise Regulation, Road Traffic Regulation, 2012; BNI Regulations 2012, and National Accreditation Board Regulation 2012.