Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has said there is a proposal for Parliament to amend its standing orders on the selection of chairpersons of committees.

Currently the standing order on the selection of committee heads in Parliament is that, it is headed by members of Majority Caucus.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, the Suame MP said the proposal came up when the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs had a working dialogue with the core leadership of Parliament on the theme: “Building consensus and trust in Parliament to enhance both procedural and substantive democracy”.

“These working dialogues deduced certain outcomes so the following recommendations were made. One was a proposal that the new standing orders of Parliament should create room for chairpersons of parliamentary committees to be shared among eligible members of Parliament solely on merit, or perhaps that we should share the leadership of the various committees amongst the various political parties instead of the current arrangement where the majority party would assume headship of all the committees in Parliament,” he told the press.

According to him, the amendment is necessary due to the fact that some committee chairpersons are appointed as Ministers because of the ‘winner takes all’ idea in the constitution.

“It is necessary because, the ruling party because of the imperatives of the Constitution, would have to surrender some of the core Members of Parliament to the President to be made Ministers and deputy Ministers. That then would leave some members of the ruling party in Parliament.

Don’t forget that ordinarily, the President would want to go for the best in Parliament to make them Ministers and deputy Ministers, so who remains in Parliament to serve as chairs of the committees,” he explained.

He noted that at the working dialogue, some measures including; engaging members of Parliament in bi-partisan discussions, the election of the right caliber of people, assigning roles and responsibilities and building an elite discussion on issues of national interest, were discussed to enhance the performance of Parliament.

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said another recommendation is for the Legislature to be decoupled from the Executive in a strict separation of powers, to enhance the public’s trust in Parliament.