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Former Member of Parliament for Bantama Constituency, Hon, Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu say it is not the priority and hope of President Akufo-Addo and the NPP government to build 450-seater chamber for Parliament.

He added that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) under President Akufo-Addo will never support the Parliamentary Service Board to build 450-seater chamber; thus,  it is a non-starter as the government has no plans to build any chamber.

“We at New Patriotic Party (NPP), our statement is that we never support the Parliamentary Service Board to build 450-seater Chamber; it is a non-starter and we are not going to build any chamber”, he stated.

Speaking to the issue of $200 million new chamber on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Dr. Kokofu wondered the twirl of politicians pretending not to know anything about the new chamber proposition as both the Majority and Minority serve on the Parliamentary Service Board.

“It is amazing the turnaround of the NDC to blame the Akufo-Addo government for planning to build 450-seater chamber when in actual fact that President Mahama in 2013 had the plan to build new chamber. The most surprising aspect of this is that the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu who serves on the Parliament Service Board is silence over this 450-seater chamber proposition when he was part of the decision making”, he wondered.

He admonished that “it is necessary that we put an end to this hypocrisy which has taken the centre stage of politicians otherwise we will never progress as a country. This is because leadership at Parliament comprise of both Majority and Minority, headed by the Speaker of Parliament...the Speaker of Parliament is the leader of Parliament but he is not a Parliamentarian but rather MPs who represent the various constituencies, both Majority and Minority headed by the Speaker are in Parliament and this idea came out while the MPs who will use the Chamber, majority of them claim they were not aware of the new chamber proposition and that makes it preposterous”.

He however charged the leadership of Parliament to come out to apologise to Ghanaians and the President even though the proposal has been called off; insisting that it is not the position of the government to build a new chamber.

He slammed that it is hypocritical on the part of the NDC to be talking of providing portable water, building schools and constructing roads now due to the proposed new chamber; thus, the NDC could have addressed these challenges when they built the Circle Interchange (Dubai).

He demanded to know if the NDC were aware of these challenges confronting schools as well as lack of community portable water and good roads when they were in power; however he reiterated that the main opposition NDC has no temerity to mention money being used for unnecessary infrastructure.  

“The various junior high school buildings which are in bad shape, did they start under President Akufo-Addo for which the NDC want to paint that picture? These challenges have been there for ages and when Mahama was building Circle Dubai (interchange), these schools were there, people were not getting portable water to drinking even in his own hometown Bole Bamboi”, he stressed.

“When he was building the Airport Terminal 3, the country was bereft of water, good roads and hospital beds and medicines but he built them without thinking of these challenges confronting the country and so they should stop that; Ghanaians are not kids and we don’t forget easily as they think of us”, he added.