Confusion at the Parliament's Constitution Committee meeting on the anti-vigilantism bill

General News on Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Source: citinewsroom.com

2019-04-30

The status of the 2019 Vigilance and Related Offenses Bill created tension among members of Parliament's Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs on Tuesday.

As chair of the committee, Ben Abdallah said the committee was reviewing the bill and waiting for input from stakeholders. Ranking member Inusah Fuseini said nothing had been done about the bill.

Mr. Inusah Fuseini was of the opinion that President Akufo-Addo was out of touch with the bill.

In an interview with Citi News, Inusah Fuseini, who is also the MP for Tamale Central, said that although all members of the committee present at the meeting agreed to treat the bill as urgent, the government by The Attorney General has done nothing to ensure its adoption.

He said, "absolutely nothing is happening on the bill."

"This is a priority for the government because the government had come to Parliament through the Attorney General under an emergency certificate. All members of the committee accepted the government's position that it was important to fight the power of vigilance and that this could pose a threat to our democracy and that we should in no way tolerate it. ;impunity. "

"We have therefore accepted that the bill has not been presented to Parliament under a certificate of urgency requiring us to set out the requirements of section 106 2B, which requires the Attorney General to publish the draft bill. law in the Gazette, which requires a 14-day notice. "

"So when we went to the committee meeting, we all agreed that we would accept the bill as an urgent bill. Nothing happens, absolutely nothing happens on the bill in Parliament. If you hear a comment on the bill, it is a footnote. The president is out of touch, "he added.

Committee Chair Ben Abdallah, defending the committee's progress on the bill, said that while the bill is urgent, it has not set any timetable for its pbadage.

"Even though the vigilantism bill is urgent, we have not set a deadline for the vigilantism bill to be pbaded. Because it was presented to the House under an emergency certificate, I sometimes have trouble setting a deadline because I can not do it because I do not have that capacity. "

Parliament today [30th April 2019] was in session as part of a four-day period after his reminder of the break to work mainly on the bill on companies and other urgent bills.