Hung Parliament must champion Constitutional Review process – Haruna Iddrissu

Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, has averred that the current composition of Parliament is a good opportunity to push for a Constitutional Review.

The 8th Parliament is made up of 137 members apiece

Read full articleon the side of the ruling New Patriotic Party and the opposition National Democratic Congress. The remaining one seat is held by an independent candidate who is affiliated with the NPP.

The current composition means the lawmaking chamber is a hung parliament - a parliament in which no political party has enough seats to secure an overall majority.

“What a hung Parliament must do is to first see a Constitutional Review process put in place, which is national in character and representative of all the major political parties in particular with expertise to guide us to transit into an improved Constitution which does not have this kind of weighted presidential powers,” Haruna said on Accra-based Citi TV during the September 29 edition of Point of View programme.

Haruna is on record to have submitted that the current government can either build on the Constitutional Review Committee report under the Mills administration or start a new process.

He is of the view that a new Constitution should water down the excessive powers of the executive wondering for example why the president should appoint CEO of Korle Bu Teaching hospital.

The call for a new constitution has gained currency in recent months with analysts – political, academia, activists – advancing that the current constitution has outlived its usefulness hence the need for a more progressive and dynamic document to usher Ghana into a new area of democratic governance.