Parliament has added one more week to its three-week meeting to enable the members to deal with the backlog of work currently before them.
The House was originally scheduled to take a break next Friday, to enable the members to campaign ahead of the December general elections but that decision has been reconsidered due to the pile of work before the House.
The Majority Leader, Alban Bagbin, who announced this, on Friday, appealed to his colleagues to be punctual and participate in the business of the House.
Mr. Bagbin, who was delivering the Business Statement for this week, bemoaned the low attendance in the past week, and urged the members not to renege on their responsibility in the House.
The third meeting of Parliament, which began two weeks ago, has recorded very low attendance due to the upcoming election. More than half of the current law makers in the House are seeking re-election in the December 7 polls.
The Speaker, Edward Adjaho, has, on a number of occasions, expressed concerns over the development, and urged the members to balance their duties in the House with the campaign.
According to the Speaker, taking a few days off the campaign to transact public business in the House would not have any serious impact on their bid to seek re-election to the next Parliament.
Despite the persistent complaint by the Speaker, there has not been any significant improvement in attendance in the House.
The Majority Leader said the House would be having extended sittings and might sit late into the evenings in order to deal with the pile of work before it.
Mr. Bagbin said the absence of the law makers was having an effect on the smooth running of business in the House and stressed the need for members to turn up in their numbers to deal with the workload before the current Parliament expired early next year.
“We need to take five more days and, therefore, I want to urgemembers not only to attend in their numbers to take the resolutions, but should be prepared to work for longer hours. If we are able to sit late into the night, we would be able to create some space for some more bills, including the Real Estate Agency Bill,” he said.
Due to the tall order of business in the House for this week, he said ministers had not been scheduled to come and respond to questions
That, he said, would give the House more time to deal with other relevant matters which needed consideration of the House.
Source: The Ghanaian Times
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