Legislators’ insensitivity is why affirmative action is not law, says Konadu
The Affirmative Action Bill has not been passed by Parliament because MPs persist in treating it as insignificant, says the newly re-elected flagbearer of the NDP
The leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, has attributed Ghana’s inability to pass the Affirmative Action Bill into law as a sign of a lack of sensitivity on the part of the people’s representatives in Parliament.
The Affirmative Action Bill, if passed into law, will ensure that critical numbers of women are appointed to and maintained in key decision-making positions in governance and other areas of public life.
It also seeks to improve the lives of women generally, leading to changes in mainstream laws and policies.
Languishing for 25 years
“It’s been there since before my husband [Jerry John Rawlings] left office,” Agyeman-Rawlings said. “We placed it in Parliament from 1997/1998. It is still there.
“If we had more women in Parliament, more gender-sensitive people in Parliament, it would have been passed by now,” she said.
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings was speaking at the national delegates’ conference of the National Democratic Party at the GNAT Hall in Accra on Saturday.
Given the lack of movement in getting the law on to the statute books, she said, she was charging members of the NDP to work hard to find representatives who can win seats in Parliament in the general election this December. With a presence in Parliament, she said, the NDP would be in a position to champion a successful development agenda.
“We have got to make sure that each member in the NDP should be able to identify a good person that can get to Parliament,” she said.
Variety of voices
Agyeman-Rawlings argued that a variety of political representation ensures a range of opinions can bring about change. “It ensures a diversity of policy,” she told party delegates.
“It will ensure continuity and refocus the lens on the long-term national development vision, not a four-year vision.
“The above analysis illustrates that the upcoming election is not about me. Because we have to see how we get into Parliament and change things. It’s about our nation and future, hence our motto,” the NDP flagbearer said.
Despite efforts by the current and previous governments to balance political representation and participation between women and men, efforts to date have not yielded many results. Proponents of affirmative action argue that the lack of progress is largely a result of poor commitment by current MPs and weakness of political will to back such initiatives.
Fred Dzakpata
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