The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has disclosed that his Cantonments residence was on the brink of being sold to a private developer while he was still occupying it.
Speaker Bagbin credited the Lands Commission’s intervention for preventing the sale of the property. He shared this information during the Speaker’s Breakfast Forum at the Swiss Spirit Alisa Hotel in Accra on November 20, 2023, emphasizing the challenges Parliament encounters, including property-related issues.
“Many of you don’t know that even the residence of the speaker was almost sold to the private sector. Actually it was given out. It was when they went to register that the Lands Commission identified that that is the residence of the Speaker. Luckily, I was inside, so it was saved,” he said.
Speaker Alban Bagbin emphasized the challenges faced by Parliament in regaining properties and the ongoing struggle to secure land for the construction of parliamentary structures.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Ghana’s start of democratic journey is known to all and needs no further mention. This largely affected the development of parliamentary democracy. Unlike the executive and the judicial arms of government, we have had to be a number of times and we lost almost all our properties. So, we are now struggling to get even our lands for us to be able to put up some structures to accommodate parliament,” he added.
The Speaker’s Breakfast Forum was under the theme; “Thirty Years of Parliamentary Democracy under the Fourth Republic: Reflect on Citizen’s Engagement and the way forward”.