Water in House of Parliament not safe - Duodu

Accra, March 12, GNA - Mr Kofi Safo Doudu, Director of Development of Parliament House on Friday told the Ghana News Agency that the water flowing through the taps in Parliament House was not potable.

"We have one obsolete water pump installed by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), which pumps water into a very small and rusty reservoir on top of the tower block, which serves that entire Parliament House. If you see the source of the water we drink in this House you will never drink water from the taps in this House ever," he said.

Mr Duodu said the water from the reservoir, which is the only available source of water in Parliament, was definitely a health hazard for occupants and visitors of the House.

He also told the GNA that the Houses of Parliament, as it stood now, had no safety measures in case of any disaster.

He noted that the round corridor that encircled the main chamber of Parliament, which was meant to be an open space where occupants of the chamber could run to in the case of any disaster within the chamber, had been covered with several cubicles being used as offices for the staff of the Parliamentary Services.

Mr Duodu said the situation was worrying but due to lack of space for offices for the staff of the Parliamentary Service, his department had no choice but to use that space for offices.

The said corridor has 31 one cubicles located within it serving as offices for the Parliamentary Service staff and media correspondents among others.

There are five cubicles on the left side of the corridor, eight on the right and 18 in the centre, right behind the Press Gallery. The five offices on the left included those of the Directors of Public Affairs and of Development and the 18 offices in the centre included those of the Estate Manager and some Committee Clerks.

Mr Duodu said the central air conditioner in the House was also not functioning, adding that the House had acquired single smaller air conditioners to cool the House, but those were not sufficient as the chamber often got warm.

He said there were no air conditioners in some of the offices of the Parliamentary Service staff, adding that as a result some of the computers develop faults due to the heat.

Mr Duodu noted that the building was not originally meant to house Parliament, saying that when Parliament moved in, the facilities needed to be upgraded but "no such thing has been done."

He said it was sad that anytime funds was advanced to Parliament for any purpose, the public complained against it, adding that there were so many things that needed to be provided for Parliament to make the work of Parliamentarians and their supporting staff effective.

In a related development the Head of the Printing Department of Parliament, Mr Jacob Akuetteh, told the GNA that most of the printing machines, especially the heavy-duty photocopiers were obsolete and needed to be replaced.

He said everyday the department printed about six hundred Order Papers and "Votes and Proceedings" paper in addition to a number of committee reports and other documents for Members of Parliament. "We use at least 15 boxes, each containing 2.5 million A-4 sheets everyday to do our work and the pressure of the work is running down the printing machines," he said.

"We have since year 2000 written letters to the Clerk every year for heavy-duty photocopiers to be bought to supplement the printers but to no avail."

He said some printing machines were donated to the Department by foreign donors, but those machines broke down in a matter of months, apparently because they were second hand machines.

Mr Akuetteh appealed to the Speaker to pay routine visits to the various departments of the Parliamentary Service and get first hand information on problems members of staff faced, adding, "in my Department for instance we come to work as early as 0530 hours to print Order Papers and close as late as midnight but we are not even allocated a vehicle to convey us home."