Parliament reconvenes with new offices for MPs

As the sixth parliament reconvenes today for the second meeting of its third session, parliamentarians are likely to be allocated their new offices in the popular ‘Job 600? edifice to operate from.

Since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1993 Members of Parliament (MPs) have not been allocated official offices where they would have research assistants to support them in their official duties in the august House.

DAILY GUIDE understands that leadership of the majority National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by Alban Bagbin, was locked up in a marathon meeting yesterday as to what preparations to be made for the smooth running of this session.

Top of the agenda were how to empower the various select and standing committees of parliament to discharge their duties effectively and the allocation of offices to sitting members of parliament.

The majority chief whip, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, confirmed the possible allocation of the offices to all MPs during this session.

According to him, the offices were to have been allocated during the last meeting but the problem they encountered was that the contractor could not finish fixing all the electronic doors to the offices.

The majority chief whip also allayed the fear that the impending parliamentary primaries to be held by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) could affect business of the House.

“I don’t think business would be seriously affected because we have all our members who would be attending while some of the NPP MPs were also returned unopposed and so they would be attending to business in the House,” he said.

He explained that the NPP primaries are slated for June 13, adding that sitting would definitely travel beyond that date to afford the rest of the (NPP) MPs to attend to business of parliament.