The Head of Human Security at the National Security Secretariat, Brigadier General Nunoo Mensah (Rtd), has made a passionate appeal to Ghana’s Parliament to detach itself from the Executive arm of government.
He was worried that the Legislature is rapidly losing its relevance as most members of the public only perceive them to be rubber stamps for government.
[contextly_sidebar id=”v27tVVMw9C7eI8mfmMiCGpe3QcHqETXB”]“We are supposed to have a Parliament which is independent of the Executive. Unfortunately, I don’t see them to be independent,” he said.
The former National Security Advisor charged the Members of Parliament (MP) to seek the interest of their constituents rather than agreeing to everything government says or brings to Parliament for approval.
Parliament has been accused of failing to stop the alleged reckless spending on the part of the Executive, a situation which has been attributed to the poor state of Ghana’s economy.
The MPs have also been accused of approving a series of loans without critical evaluation of the agreements.
Speaking to Citi News, Nunoo Mensah insisted the inability of the MPs to play their oversight role properly is self inflicted.
“If a party is in power, the membership of the party in Parliament is supposed to be critical even of the government and come out with fair criticisms if the government policy is not right but we don’t have it. So the Parliamentarians are not effective as they should be,” he remarked.
He continued saying, “Parliament is behaving as if it’s part of the executive but they should be independent and they should and be critical but they are not.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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