Parliament defers reconciliation bill

Parliament on Tuesday deferred the motion on the National Reconciliation Bill till Thursday when the Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey and the Minority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin, who have travelled, might have returned from their journeys.

The Speaker has gone outside the country while Mr Bagbin was said to have gone to his constituency, Nadowli South.

Mr Freddie Blay, First Deputy Speaker, deferred putting the question on the motion when Papa Owusu-Ankomah, the Majority Leader requested that line of action should be taken after consultations with the leadership of the House.

Mr Doe Adjaho, Minority Chief Whip, promptly seconded the Majority Leader's position and said, "We are still consulting".

The Bill seeking to unite the country and to redress human rights violations suffered a set back on Friday, November 29, when the Minority walked out of the House as Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, Attorney-General and the Minister of Justice was winding up a debate at the end of the second reading of the bill.

The Minority accused the Minister of using abusive language and demanded an apology from him.

The two sides of the House stuck to their positions with respect to the time frame that the Bill would cover. The government said the National Reconciliation Commission to be established should concern itself with abuses during military regimes while the Minority insisted that the reconciliation efforts should date back to the day of Ghana's independence.

The House with 107 votes with none against resolved to ratify the agreement between Ghana and US on Narcotics Control.

It was moved by the Minister of the Interior, Alhaj Malik Al-Hassan Yakubu moved the motion on the resolution.

The House also adopted three reports from its two committees, which were the Public Accounts Committee's report of the Auditor General on the Consolidated Fund for 1996, 1997 and 1998.

The rest were the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation on the Export and Import (Prohibition of Importation of Used LPG Cylinders) Instrument, 2001, LI 1693 and the report on the Water Use Regulations 2001 LI 1692.