The PPP has been deeply concerned about the delay in passing the now CI 78 which seeks to create the new forty-five (45) constituencies. The controversy and the delay could have been avoided if parliament as a collective body had approached the issue with a lot more diligence and without the unnecessary partisanship displayed by the House of Parliament. The mess is purely a governance issue and the lack of finesse in taking decisions in the national interest. Instead of spending time discussing serious issues such as 1) reforming the Constitution to simply limit the number of constituencies that can be created or 2) working with the EC to implement a form of proportional representation as suggested by former Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), David Adenze Kanga, which would decrease the incumbency abuse of creating districts and constituencies as pre-election gifts, Parliament is dragging its feet and letting Ghana down as usual. Ghanaians should not waste their votes on Parliamentarians like those who continually refuse to work for progress in Ghana and deliver nothing but disappointments. The PPP does not understand why the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation waited till the last three days before the original CI 73 could mature before they raised issues with the fact that the document was fraught with mistakes. If the Committee had approached the issue with a sense of urgency, we will not be having some sections of the population, civil society and political parties raising the argument of timing. In our opinion the detection and the correction thereof of the errors could have been done in a matter of one week after the document was laid. How come it took three weeks for the Committee to report on the errors on such an important national exercise such as creating constituencies? The PPP considers the numerous withdrawals, the inappropriate numbering of the document and the subsequent walk outs by the minority group as a matter of lack of due diligence on the part of parliament. How come the gazette notification in compliance with Article 11(7) (b) of the Constitution relating to the laying of CI's escaped the attention of the Majority Leader, the Leader of the House of Parliament, before the document was re-laid? The delay and the controversy are completely unwarranted and the PPP believes that our representatives in parliament could do better than this. Isn't it instructive that all NPP minority members have a different position from all the NDC majority members of parliament? This conduct and attitude on the part of members of parliament is inimical to progress and doing things in the national interest with a sense of urgency. The PPP calls all Ghanaians to be awake and elect into parliament progressive and independent-minded members of parliament who would approach decision-making in the House from the perspective of the National Interest. We are Awake! Kofi Asamoah-Siaw National Secretary, PPP