Parliamentary Service Board responsible for new chamber – Carlos Ahenkorah

Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah has stated that he can’t understand why citizens are blaming parliamentarians and lambasting them about a new parliamentary chamber.

According to him, “it is unfair that citizens take that route to address such an issue, because there is more to it than they understand.”

He says parliamentarians do not have any control over whether a new chamber should be built or not.

He said there are a lot of problems with regards to the chamber that can call for a new chamber to be built. The most of it he mentioned was that some majority members in the house have to occupy seats at the minority section because there is limited space for them to occupy at the majority side. This to him is inappropriate.

Speaking on UTV’s ‘Adekye Nsroma’ newspaper discussion programme, the Member of Parliament for Tema West Constituency in the Greater Accra Region pointed out that he will not vote for a new chamber currently due to the state of other developmental projects that the country needs to complete, but it can be booked for the future.

“It is the mandate of the Parliamentary Service Board to determine what to do as far as parliament is concerned without necessarily the consent of parliamentarians . . . ” he added. 

In a further submission, he noted that the Parliamentary Service Board made no mistake in taking a decision of building a new chamber without the consent of parliamentarians because, “it is not their mandate to inform us as parliamentarians every decision they take until government will need a loan to embark on the said project.”