Special Prosecutor Bill in Parliament

The Majority leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has revealed that the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, together with the Northern Development Authority Bill, Middle Belt Development Authority Bill and the Coastal Development Authority Bill would be introduced into parliament by the end of this week.

He made the disclosure to the media after sitting yesterday which lasted for about 40 minutes, with the minority members raising serious concerns about the short time spent for sitting. He stressed that if the government does not have any business for parliament to do, it should let them know so that they would not come and waste their time.

Three papers were laid yesterday after which the house adjourned, but the minority members said they were prepared to stay longer to work.

However, the majority leader, briefing a section of the parliamentary press corps after sitting yesterday, said that the government was working very hard to bring new bills to parliament for it to work on.

According to Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, since the new bills are very important, a lot of work needed to be done on them before their introduction to parliament.

He said that the Attorney General had had to work fervently to ensure that the Office of the Special Prosecutor bill was ready for parliament to work on before the second meeting comes to a close on August 2.

Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said he met the cabinet sub-committee on Monday and he was told that the three development authorities’ bills would be brought to the house by the close of this week.

“In the three weeks ahead of us before this meeting comes to a close, we as parliament would have to work extra hard to be able to pass these four bills,” he urged, stressing that it was most likely that the new Railway Development Bill would also be introduced before the house goes on recess.