This week in Parliament: Interior Minister to brief House on Ghana Card
The Minister for the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, is scheduled to brief Parliament on Wednesday, July 6, 2022 on the challenges the NIA is facing regarding the printing and issuance of the ECOWAS Identity Card, also known as the "Ghana Card".
This has come about as a result of the inability of many Ghanaians to have their cards printed out for them to enable them to link their bank accounts and SIM cards after going through the registration process.
Advertisement
With this development, Ghanaians who do not yet have the Ghana Card will miss out on this two important national exercises.
It also means that Ghanaians who do not have their Ghana Cards and are unable to link their bank accounts cannot transact business while those who have not linked their SIM cards to the Ghana cards will also not be able to use them after the expiration of the deadline.
Terrorist attacks
The Minister of National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah, is also scheduled to brief the House on Thursday, July 7, 2022 at a close sitting barring any unforeseen developments.
It will be on matters pertaining to the security of the state, particularly with regard to the recent spate of terrorist attacks within the West African sub-region.
Compensation package for poultry farmers
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has also been scheduled for Tuesday, July 5, 2022 to brief the House on the compensation package by the government to poultry farmers who were impacted by the outbreak of the highly pathogenic influenza in 2021.
Aside from these three Ministers of State who are scheduled to brief Parliament on these national important matters, five others are also expected to appear before the House this week.
They are the Minister of Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh; Minister of Railways Development, John Peter Amewu; Minister of Environment, Science Technology and Innovation, Dr Kwaku Afriyie; Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, and Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Mavis Hawa Koomson.
They are expected to respond to 31 questions, out of which 12 stand in the name of the Minister of Energy, Dr Prempeh, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia South, and nine in the name of the Minister of Interior, Mr Dery.
Nature of questions
For the Energy Minister most of the questions asked of him by Members of the House are constituency specific relating to the extension of electricity to communities that have no access to electricity (the rural electrification project).
The only question to be asked of the Energy Minister which is not constituency specific is by the MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
Mr Ablakwa is asking the Minister of Energy to provide a detailed list of beneficiaries of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Foundation’s activities and interventions with a breakdown of the cost of each item from the period 2017 to 2020.
Some of the nine questions to be answered by the Minister for the Interior are being asked by the MP for Ejura-Sekyedumase, Muhammed Bawah Braimah, and MP for Madina, Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu.
Mr Braimah is asking the Minister for the Interior when bodyguards assigned to MPs would be properly equipped to carry out their mandate and when the state would pay compensation to victims of the Ejura shooting incident, including the families of the two deceased persons.
Mr Sosu for his part seeks to ask the Minister for the Interior the measures being taken to increase the feeding allocation of GH¢1.80 per day with the view to ensure prisoners right to adequate food and nutrition in line with Sustainable Development Goal two, which calls for Zero Hunger.
The other question to be asked by Mr Sosu is the state of rehabilitation and reformation programme for inmates by the Ghana Prisons Service.