Full text: Remarks by Minority Leader upon resumption of Parliament on October 15

REMARKS BY THE MINORITY LEADER, HON. CASSIEL ATO FORSON, (PhD) TO WELCOME HON. MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT BACK TO THE FIFTH MEETING OF THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE 8TH PARLIAMENT OF THE FOURTH REPUBLIC, DELIVERED IN PARLIAMENT

TUESDAY, 15^TH OCTOBER, 2024

1. Hon Speaker, as always, I am exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to welcome members and your good self to the commencement of the Fifth meeting of the fourth Session of the 8^th Parliament of the Fourth Republic.

2. It is equally proper that I acknowledge you, Rt. Hon Speaker for your guidance and how you continue to stir the affairs of this House.

3. Hon. Speaker, having discharged these courtesies, let me be quick to state that all is not well with our nation.

4. Speaker, our country is under attack. Ghana is under the plague of an unprecedented spate of illicit, illegal, uncontrolled and unregulated mining activities.

5. I say this because Ghana is on the precipice of a self-inflicted environmental genocide.

6. Our beautiful country, once called the Gold Coast to underscore the rich mineral deposits God has bestowed on us is fast becoming a pale shadow of its self.

7. Our lands with all their rich flora and fauna are being destroyed by the day.

8. Our once pristine rivers and waterbodies are now looking as brown as coffee, having been poisoned to satisfy the insatiable greed of an unscrupulous few.

9. Many farmlands including cocoa farms have been completely destroyed and in their place are unattended pits and gullies from uncontrolled mining activities.

• According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), it may take up to 300 years to restore the quality of soil damaged by illegal mining.

11. Hon. Speaker, it appears we are at war against ourselves, and the destructive effects are frightening and far-reaching.

• The reckless and criminal discharge of heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cyanide into our waterbodies and lands have already begun to have dire consequences on our health.

13. Medical experts have delivered a scary verdict on babies being born with various deformities such as the absence of limbs, eyes and other vital body parts.

• Speaker, we are at crises point. At the heart of this crises is leadership failure, official complicity and lack of political will by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government.

• Hon Speaker, to do nothing is no longer an option. This House must rise to the occasion and bring the necessary pressure to bear on government to act.

16. Hon Speaker, as we go into another election cycle, government must guard against the temptation to spend what it does not have.

• Such reckless fiscal indiscipline is what has landed our country in a debt hole and brought untold hardship on Ghanaians.

18. I am reliably informed that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government intends to dole out about GHS3,000 per person and other assorted election-driven handouts to some 800,000 so-called farmers in the name of drought relief.

• It is obvious that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government has not learned any useful lessons from the misuse of Covid-19 funds and borrowed funds on reckless consumption-driven expenditure.

• This NPP government must be reminded that Ghana’s economy which they have badly mismanaged is still not out of the woods.

• Hence, strict adherence to fiscal responsibility rules must be upheld even in an election year.

• Hon Speaker, I thank you.

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