House expresses concern about inaugural ceremony

Spread, Jan 10, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
MEMBERS of Parliament (MPs) yesterday expressed concern about the haphazard manner the inaugural ceremony of President John Evans Atta Mills and the Vice President, Mr John Mahama, was organised last Wednesday.
They were contributing to a statement made on the floor of the House by the Majority Leader, Mr Alban S.K Bagbin, to congratulate and thank the President for his election, swearing in and his inaugural speech.
In his statement, Mr Bagbin noted that “I will be failing in my duty if I do not express serious concern about the manner in which the inaugural ceremony was organised”.
“We have witnessed difficult and suffocating inaugural ceremonies in this country. But to put it mildly, this inaugural ceremony went over the imagination of everybody,” he said.
Mr Bagbin noted that the crowd overran the security and turned the parliamentary sitting into a national political rally.
He said as a Majority Leader, he saw no arrival nor departure of any dignitary, including the Speaker, adding that MPs were subjected to, “a scene of a struggle between the security personnel and the perambulating members of the public, particularly the prying teeming media”.
Mr Bagbin stated that the scene was chaotic and precarious and cautioned that such repeated inaugural ceremonies posed a challenge that should be confronted for a solution.
In his statement, the Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, stated that the MPs were trapped in their buses for almost two hours and had to get down to trek to the Independence Square.
He said at the Square, there were insufficient number of seats for MPs while ‘strangers’ occupied some of the few seats allocated to them.
Mr Kyei Mensah-Bonsu added that although the programme was one by Parliament, yet it appeared that MPs were rather the gatecrashers.
He suggested that by what happened at the Independence Square on January 7, 2009, January 7, 2005, January 7, 2001 and January 7, 1997, Parliament may have to resolve that the swearing-in of any President-elect should take place right in the chamber of the House.
Other MPs from both sides of the House who contributed to the statement also expressed concern about the manner in which the ceremony was held.
Both Mr Isaac Asiamah, NPP MP for Atwima-Mponua and Ambrose Dery (NPP, Lawra/Nandom), called on Parliament to ensure that future Presidents were sworn in in the chamber of the House.
Mr Iddrisu Haruna (NDC, Tamale South) and E.T. Mensah (NDC, Ningo/Prampram), who contributed to the statement, congratulated the President and the Vice President on their feat.