Former Clerk to Parliament cautions against wrong information

Accra, Dec. 22, GNA - A former Clerk to Parliament has said it would be premature now to single out which of the two major political parties would control the next parliament in terms of who became the Majority Leader to run government business.

"We cannot create a mathematical problem and endorse any group as having the majority now with two parliamentary seats still undeclared. We need to see our way clearly to enable us come out with the right information," Mr Rex Owusu-Ansah said during interactions the Editorial Staff of the Ghana News Agency (GNA ) in Accra.

Mr Owusu-Ansah, also Board Chairman of the GNA, who touched on some nagging challenges of the next parliament, said the journalists had to make sure they fed the public with the right electoral information to avoid chaos.

He said the next parliament was likely to face some challenges such as which party had the numbers to elect the next Speaker and Majority Leader.

The former Clerk said presently, as things stood, the Standing Orders of Parliament stated that a Majority Leader was a Member of Parliament designated as such by a party or parties holding the majority of seats in the House.

According to him, the two major parties could decide to go into alliances with the smaller parities to get majority of seats to elect a Majority Leader.

He said it was therefore important that staff of the GNA made an informed appraisal of the complexities of the next parliament before going public with any information to avoid misleading the public. Earlier, Mr Owusu-Ansah touched on preparations to usher in the new government and legislature.

He said there were transitional issues that both the current presidency and parliament had to deal with. He touched on whether it would be feasible to pass a transitional bill at this stage under a certificate of urgency by the current parliament or wait for the new parliament to do so to take care of the transfer of power from one government to another.

He said it may be misconstrued if this current parliament amended or revised the Standing Orders when it reconvened after the run-off. The former Clerk also had a word for the winner of the presidential elections, saying he would have to negotiate skilfully with the new legislature in a sober way because of the complexities of the incoming parliament.

"Political lobbyists and acrobats will have to step in to deal with this situation," he added.

Mr Owusu-Ansah commended the staff of GNA for handling the first round of the general elections professionally and urged them to keep the good work up.

Mr Boakye-Dankwa Boadi, Supervising Chief Editor, said staff of the Agency needed to stay on top and always sharpen their competitiveness through such interactions. 22 Dec. 08