Parliament adopts President's address

Parliament on today unanimously agreed to thank President John Agyekum Kufuor for delivering the State of the Nation Address after two weeks of debate during which the Minority attempted to tear it into shreds while the Majority pieced it together.

A motion standing in the name of Mr Kwasi Kyeremateng, NPP-Afigya Sekyere East requested the House to thank the President for delivering the address as the Constitution demanded.

In summing up the debate, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, said some members described the address as hollow, lacking in focus and direction while others saw it as excellent, forthright and courageous. "It was like an elephant which when people touched its different parts describe it in the way they felt it. Some said it was tender while others said it was hard".

Papa Owusu-Ankomah said it must be acknowledged that Parliament had had its legislative and deliberative duty in debating the address devoid of fear and intimidation. He said members should feel-free to raise matters in the House to strengthen the practice of parliamentary democracy rather than carrying them to the media.

Papa Owusu-Ankomah said the budget, which would be presented on Thursday would encompass the nitty-gritty of the address which was rather a broad out-look on the entire State of the Nation.

Mr Alban Bagbin, the Minority Leader said the NPP should purge itself from the culture of intolerance and harping on what the National Democratic Congress (NDC) should have done or could not do.

He said: "If the NDC had done everything well there will be no justification for the good people of Ghana to vote the NPP (New Patriotic Party) into power. If we have made mistakes, it is for the NPP to correct them and move the nation forward according to their electoral promises."

Mr Bagbin said the NPP had thrown more than three million people out of job and could not fulfil its promise of creating 100,000 jobs in its 100 days in office.

He said the affected workers were from NADMO, private lottery operators and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and asked whether these were negative or positive achievement since the NPP claimed to represent a positive change.