The African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs has asked Ghana’s Parliament to stop complaining about being powerless and use its mandate to enact laws to enhance their oversight responsibilities.
The Executive Director for the centre, Dr. Rashid Dramani on Eyewitness News said: “Alban Bagbin [Majority Leader] has been complaining that they [MPs] are powerless and so on. If you are powerless, you make the laws. If you are powerless because of certain structural constraints, change the laws!”
[contextly_sidebar id=”L5s3c7nDgsCkmwsVSI11VCzFgfMj9CXA”]A report released by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) indicated citizen dissatisfaction with towards Members of Parliament (MPs) for their failure to effectively check the Executive arm of government.
But in defense, the Majority Leader, Alban Bagbin said some provisions in the 1992 constitution prevent the legislature from carrying out its duties effectively.
According to him, for Parliament to undertake its oversight responsibilities, MPs need adequate resources; a requirement he said the House is struggling with.
He indicated that Parliamentary committees have been established in accordance with Article 103 of the constitution but he pointed out that the government must provide those committees with the needed resources to inquire, probe and investigate the activities of the Executive.
“So if it is the Executive that is supposed to release the resources to you to investigate them, then I’m sure that those resources will not be forthcoming. So if the committees don’t have the resources to move out to do the investigation then they will definitely be seen as ineffective,” he explained.
But Dr. Dramani insists that partisanship is one of the key reasons why the Legislature remains ineffective.
“If we need to bring about change, if we want reforms, I think we have to tone down the partisanship that characterizes our politics,” he said.
He argued that MPs “sit in Parliament and complain about their inability to do a lot of things but they can change the laws if they are united as a Parliament – NDC, NPP, and CPP.”
Dr. Dramani observed that despite the unanimous complaints and concerns raised by MPs, when the issue of enacting new laws to make them effectively check the Executive, “you will begin to see the party colours showing up and they forget about the interest of the Ghanaian people that they represent.”
He therefore advised that until Ghana is able to get rid of the partisanship that characterizes particularly, the work of Parliament, “we will continue to talk about these issues and…countries will continue to improve their systems and Ghana will still be marking time.”
“I think we have to do something significant about the report. We can’t continue to talk as a country and just write reports, we talk about them, two days later, we all forget and its business as usual. The next time we talk about it is when another report comes up,” he added.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana