Parliament reconvenes today
Parliament reconvenes today, to begin the third session of the sixth Parliament of the fourth republic.
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A number of important bills such as the Right to Information Bill, Renewable Energy Bill and Colleges of Education Bill are expected to be passed.
Debate of the House will also focus on the state of the nation address by the President as mandated by the 1992 Constitution.
The House will play host to President John Mahama when he delivers the state of the nation address hopefully in March.
Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution stipulates that the President shall, at the beginning of each session of Parliament and before the dissolution of Parliament, deliver to Parliament a message on the state of the nation.
Other important matters the House will address would be bills that would be introduced to the House and outstanding business that could not be tackled or completed during the previous sessions.
It will be recalled that the leadership fixed a tentative date of January 27 for the reconvening of the House but had to change the date to Tuesday, February 3 by a constitutional instrument in the exercise of the powers conferred on the Speaker by clause (1) of article 112 of the Constitution.
The change in the date for reconvening led to speculation by a section of the media that the House did not have finances to enable it to conduct business.
However, in a rebuttal, authoritative sources of the House debunked the claims and insisted that the House had a solid financial base to conduct its business without any hitch.
Deputy Majority Leader, Alfred Agbesi, explained that the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, used his discretion to choose the new date after the Business Committee of the House proposed a date.
“The leadership of Parliament proposed that Parliament should reconvene on the 27th of January, which was subject to the approval of the Speaker and that is the reason why he has fixed a new date of 3rd February,” he insisted.