The Constitutional Review Consultative Committee (CRCC) has submitted its report to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
As part of its recommendations, the committee has recommended that the size of Parliament should be capped at 277 elected members of Parliament.
According to the consultative committee, Article 93 of the 1992 Constitution should therefore be amended to read as follows: “There shall be a Parliament of Ghana which shall consist of not more than two hundred and seventy-seven elected members.”
The implication of this is that there must be consequential amendments to Article 47 to place a numerical cap on the number of constituencies that Ghana must have.
It added that Article 47 must also be amended to read as follows – “Ghana shall be divided into as many constituencies for the purpose of election of Members of Parliament as the Electoral Commission may prescribe; however, the number of constituencies shall not exceed two hundred and seventy-seven.”
The consultative committee in the Executive Summary of their report submitted to President Akufo-Addo explained that the reasons for the choice of 277 elected members as the maximum number was that: “(a) recommending a lesser number than the existing number will require that certain constituencies be scrapped.
“The decision on which constituencies to scrap would involve politicians and their followers, and it is not reasonably expected that a political party would approve that constituencies in its stronghold be scrapped. On the other hand, it can be reasonably expected that each political party is more likely to lean towards recommending constituencies in its opponent’s stronghold to be scrapped. This would invariably result in needless acrimony.”
Again, it said “Not recommending a reduction would therefore be the less acrimonious option; (b) the existing constituencies are already two hundred and seventy-six. As an odd number is to be preferable, we recommend an upper limit of two hundred and seventy-seven.”
The CRCC was to review the 2011 report of the Constitution Review Committee (CRC), review submissions, proposals, and reports on various constitutional review platforms such as Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), University of Ghana School of Law, University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA), Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) among others.
Source: Graphic.com.gh
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