The Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu is saddened by what he says is government's continued violation of the law in respect over-expenditure.

Addressing a lecture organised by the Danquah Institute the minority leader said the government must be seen to be respecting the laws passed by Parliament and assented by the President.

Indeed, it should be the business of the Finance Committee [of Parliament] to detect and question why in 2009 government over expenditure amounted to GH¢300 million.  Why over expenditure in 2010 exceeded GH¢800 million or why over expenditure totaled GH¢1.3 billion in 2011 and; the mother of all over expenditures – GH¢2.8 billion or ¢28 trillion in 2012.  Yes, 2012 was on election year but equally so was 2004 where there was not a penny of over expenditure.  In 2008 the government submitted a supplementary budget to cover an amount of GH¢180 million which was related to the elections, specifically, the Electoral Commission’s activities.  Professor Mills qualified that additional GH¢180 million as profligate expenditure.  How would the revered Professor have described the over-expenditure by GH¢2.8 billion?

"Over-expenditure means government expenditure exceeds the statutory allocation captured in the Appropriation Act.  It means government [is] not obeying the law.  Does Parliament merely sit and applaud?  Parliament must act to stop government from this gross non-conformity with the law.  Otherwise, making laws become a worthless enterprise.  If government itself would not respect the laws that are made would government have the moral right to expect citizens to obey laws that are made?

Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu was speaking under the theme: "The deficit in Parliamentary oversight in the fight against corruption."

Before we can proceed to identify the oversight responsibility of Parliament in a democracy, it is imparative to be clear about what our own understanding of ‘democracy’ is. As a concept, democracy is innate and almost universally accepted as both ideal and a goal. It is foundationed on shared values of humanity in spite of cultural, social, political and economic differences which may exist between and among people. The pivotal object of democracy is to protect and promote the fundamental rights of the individual to achieve social justice, facilitate social and economic development of the communities, strengthen the cohesion of society and engender a congenial environment for sustainable peace, domestically and internationally.

The Greeks were the first people to showcase the concept as “a governmentof the people, by the people and for the people”. It is not about landmass, it is not about trees, it is not about rivers. The very opening article of our 1992 constitution provides: “the sovereignty of Ghana resides in the people of Ghana in whose name and for whose welfare the powers of government are to be exercised...” “The sovereignty” not half or a quarter or any portion, the entirety of “sovereignty” resides or vests in “the people” not in any other thing, “the people” “in whose name”, that is, in the name of the people; and “for whose welfare”, in other words, in pursuit of the wellbeing or welfare of the people,“the powers of government” are to be discharged. All powers of government are to be carried out solely for the welfare of the people.  Again, it is important to note who is involved here:the people.

Chapter six of the national constitution which introduces the Directive Principles of State Policy, in its opening article of 34(1) emphasizes the establishment of a just and free society as the kernel of democratic governance. Indeed, Article 34(2) compels the President of the Republic “to report to Parliament at least once a year all the steps taken to ensure the realization of the policy objectives contained in this Chapter (i.e. Chapter6) and, in particular, the realization of human rights, a healthy economy, the right to work, the right to good health and the right to education”. All these indicators are about the people in whom sovereignty resides, in whose name and for whose welfare the powers of government are to be exercised.

Mr. Chairman, democracy entails representation since it is impossible to assemble all the people at one place to deliberate and take decisions and, Chapter Seven of our constitution is on Representation of the People. Article 47 which prescribes representation by constituencies provides in Clause 3: “The boundaries of each constituency shall be such that the number of inhabitants (i.e. the number of people) in the constituency is, as nearly as possible, equal to the population quota. Article 47(7) defines “population quota” as “the number obtained by dividing the number of inhabitants of Ghana by the number of constituencies into which Ghana is divided.” Representation therefore is about people, democracy is about people.

Indeed the very preamble of the constitution puts the matter of sovereignty, characterization and representation beyond doubt when it declares: “In the name of the Almighty God, we the people of Ghana in the exercise of our natural inalienable rights to establish a framework of government which shall secure for ourselves and posterity the blessings of liberty, equality of opportunity and prosperity…etc, etc. It is about “we the people”. It is the people who matter. In the circumstance, any attempt to define representation to include landmass, geographical expanse, wildlife, etc is an unnecessary imposition which has the effect to dilute, and pollute the effect of representation. The argument to include matters other than human beings can only be a convoluted and diversionary one.  It is, to say the least, unmeritorious.

To reposition ourselves, Mr. Chairman, it is important to recognize a very important feature of democracy as a system of governance where government is accountable to the voters, where there is observance of human rights and the rule of law and where there are free and fair elections at regular intervals with voters accorded the right to choose their representatives from parties or persons competing in conditions of equality and transparency.

What should the electorates be looking out for in electing governments? A good government exhibits three main attributes; It is one that is

1. Competent. i.e.one that produces and executes good economic policies and programs including the operation of a stable currency and providing the congenial legal and regulatory regime to facilitate the operation of the relevant market forces; ensure that resources available to the state are prudently allocated in accordance with well-thought through and defined priorities; and one that must rid itself of corruption.
2. Accountable.  Accountability twins transparency to engender an atmosphere of predictable and repeated appearance before the governed to inform them about what have been availed to the state; what have been done intheir name; what the outcomes have been in national development and seeking fresh mandates to either be continue or be stopped.
3. Above all, a good government must show respect for the individual (i.e. in matters relating to human rights, including providing for the effective functioning of constitutional bodies, including the ombudsman (CHRAJ in our case), and independent and efficient judiciary to offer redress to all persons regardless of their status etc.

These views, distinguished participants, are acclaimed by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association under whose auspices a book: “Parliamentary Democracy: Is There A Perfect Model”, an Ashgate Publication has been generated in 2001. It was authored by Nicholas Hopkinson.

Parliament is the institution that is charged with the responsibility to ensure that government is put on its toes in order to avoid any breaches and promote real growth. That is why parliament must not be constrained, restricted or gagged, for, any such attempt will play to the advantage of the Executive and the people will be the losers.

Features and Functions of Parliament

In acclaimed democracies, there is general acceptance about the key functions of Parliament which must be effectively carried out in order that a Parliament will be relevant.

Parliaments come in various shapes, sizes and features in tenure, powers, duties, in procedures, in autonomy and traditions and conventions. For example, some Parliamentarians sit for as few as 10 days in a year. Ghana’s Parliament averages 130 days per year. I am informed that the 2012 was the year in which we had the most sittings, 152 days. Some Parliaments elsewhere sit for as many as 225 days per year.

All these relate to plenary sittings and do not include Committee sittings. National Parliaments have as few as 13 members as in Tuvalu,as great communities as in the Chinese National People’s Congress which has 2,978 members and 18 Deputy Speakers. Some Parliaments comprise full time members while others have only part timers.

Most observers consider that the modern Parliament and their MP’s have seven main functions:

1. Representation (of voters)
2. Legislation or law-making
3. Power of the purse or Financial Control
4. Oversight of the executive and the independent constitutional bodies
5. Deliberation
6. Information transmission or dissemination
7. Problem resolution or at least attending to problems

Effective Parliament

The legitimacy of Parliament is measured by these roles that they perform and how effective they are. A strong Parliament is one that has fair and unbiased rules, a capacity to represent the will of the people and a reasonable and appropriate role in decision making. A Parliament with no substantial role in the political process or in making binding decisions is a toothless, rubber-stamp and inconsequential entity.

The constitution provides in Article 106 (1) that “the power of Parliament to make laws shall be exercised by bills passed by Parliament…” Now, since the President is vested with executive authority in Article 58 which extends to the execution and maintenance of all laws made under this constitution which the President has sworn to uphold, he authenticates bills passed by Parliament.  This assent, according to a former Attorney-General of Ghana implies that the President, the head of Executive, shares the power of legislation equally with parliament. Parliament in 2010 almost capitulated to this obnoxious request in spite of the reasoned arguments submitted by the minority group on the floor of Parliament. The day was saved and Ghana was spared the agony of an overbearing executive to erode the powers of the legislature by the timeous intervention of a former majority leader. It happened in 2010 in the era of a God-fearing President, himself a seasoned lawyer, and who had sworn to defend the constitution.

Electorates are short-changed if Parliaments denied resources to undertake the seven functions defined above, or if Parliaments are wasteful or inefficient in the use of the resources that are provided. What may seem at first sight to be a merelytechnical or procedural consideration may turn out to have profound relevance to outcomes in terms of legislation and financial expenditure, especially with regard to value-for-money considerations that may impact the needs of communities.

Parliament’s effectiveness, according to David Beetham’s “Parliament and Democracy” publication in 2006, is also measured by its capacity to perform effectively its functions. Parliamentary effectiveness cannot be satisfactorily treated without confronting issues of power. “Power” has many different meanings, but for our purpose, two are relevant.

The first is power as capacity i.e. having the relevant legal rights and resources – financial, human and relevant rules of procedure and organizational abilities to carry out relevant tasks. The second is power as relational – i.e. having adequate power and independence in relation to the Executive to oversee it effectively.  In these it is important for Parliament to strike a balance between cooperation with and oversight over an elected Executive; sheer obstructionism on the part of parliament rarely serves the populace.  Nonetheless, the greater danger in contemporary times is that of a domineering Executive whether through lack of Parliamentary capacity, or an unwillingness on the part of Parliaments, especially Parliaments in the developing world, to exercise the powers they have.

For instance, Article 108 provides: “…………” read.  Speakers in Ghana’s Parliament have interpreted this provision to mean that neither Parliament as an institution nor a Member of Parliament can introduce a bill or motion in Parliament which may have financial implications.  Now, considering that fact that the drafting, and printing of the bill may bear on the public funds, our Speakers have disabled Parliament and Parliamentarians from introducing such bills and motions.  This provision exist in the Constitutions of almost all the commonwealth countries but it has not been a hindrance in those countries.  In Ghana this provision is a huge impediment.  Paradoxically, Article 103(3) provides: “Committees of Parliament shall be charged with such functions, including the investigation and inquiry into the activities and administration of ministries and departments as Parliament may determine and such investigations and enquiries may extend to proposals (bills) for legislation”.  This is the clear language of the constitution.  However, since 1992 Ghana’s Parliament has not succeeded in reconciling these two provisions.  The result is that our Parliament has been rendered disabled by our Speakers.   

In spite of these challenges and others associated with Executive dominance especially in developing democracies, the media, globalization, the information revolution and the growing role of CSOs and their advocacy of direct democracy, Parliament remains the main national forum for political debate and the sieving of the relevant national development ideas.

The Balance Between Parliament and the Executive

As a country and as people we should never forget that democracies emerged out of a long struggle for supremacy between different branches of government. Parliament has been the only arm of government that has always been proscribed with the advent of any coup de tat. The Executive has continued and the Judiciary has survived. Ghana’s Parliament must therefore ensure that Parliament and MPs have the tools to keep pace with government, thus maintaining the delicate balance between Parliament and the Executive.  This is the hallmark of democratic parliamentary systems.

The Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) 2006 publication on “Parliament and Democracy in the 21st Century – A Guide to Good Practice” provides a list of five (5) key characteristics of a democratic parliament. It is one which is:

1. Representative – that is socially and politically representative of the diversity of the people and ensuring equal opportunities for all its members. Paramount among such considerations is women representation. The IPU has strongly suggested that by 2015 all Parliaments shall have at least 30 per cent women representation. Since 1993 Ghana has never attained 15%.  Today, women make up less than 10% of total membership in Parliament.

 

1. Transparent – Parliament wants the Executive to be transparent, Parliament itself must be transparent, i.e. being open to the nation through the various media and transparent in the conduct of its business.

 

1. Accessible – Involving people including associations, groups, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the work of Parliament.

 

1. Accountable – Parliament and MPs must be accountable to the electorate for their performance in office or ensure the integrity of conduct.

 

1. Effective – which means effective organization of business in accordance with these democratic values and the performance of parliament’s core functions, especially, legislative and oversight, in a manner to cater for the needs of the entire populace.

TOOLS FOR PARLIAMENT’S OVERSIGHT RESPONSIBILITIES

In overseeing the Executive, Parliament is equipped with some tools notable among which are:

1. Question Time

This involves a group or a Member filing a question to summon a Minister to Parliament to answer to questions relating to public affairs with which they are officially connected, proceedings pending in Parliament or any matter of administration for which such ministers are responsible. Questions relating to matters which are under the control of a statutory body must be restricted to those matters for which a minister is made responsible by law or which affect the general policy of that statutory body. These are captured in Order 62 (1) & (2) of our Standing Orders. In Ghana once a question is filed and the Speaker has sanctioned it, the Clerk to Parliament immediately communicates the text to the Minister or Member to whom the question is addressed (Order 66 (2)) and the Minister has to respond within three weeks upon receipt (Order 60 (3)).

A question may be a normal one, which requires notice to be given and for it to be advertised on the Order Paper or business paper which contains the agenda of business to be transacted on a particular sitting day and the next sitting day. An Urgent Question may be asked without notice i.e. without publication and the time required for response even though not specifically provided for in our orders, by necessary inferences, means it shall take lesser time than three weeks to be responded to. Indeed, in the review exercise currently on-going, it is being proposed that, the time required to answer such questions must be defined and, specifically, it is being proposed that it should not take more than three days for a response to be given.

A question proposed to be asked, whether normal or urgent, must be admitted by the Speaker since as Order 66 (1) provides: “Mr. Speaker shall be the sole judge of the admissibility of a Question.” Some Speakers play tricks with such authority to unnecessarily delay the admission and transmission of questions such that questions tend to loose their potency over time.

Question time last for one hour at any sitting day and some leaders and Speakers have the disingenuous conspiratorial ability to pack so many questions at a given day that prosecuting the questions to derive relevant truthful answers could be guillotined in order to save the face of government.

Another awkward resort by some Speakers presiding over Question time is preventing the sequential flow of questions to a hard-pressed Minister. The Standing Orders do not prescribe a number of supplementary questions to be asked once a substantive question has been answered, and Speakers would normally resort to reasons of “time constraint” to allow for not more than one supplementary question per member and, also, whilst pretending to be equitable, would hop from one side of the political divide to the other even when the government party members, who usually ask leading questions, have no useful questions to ask.

These resorts or tricks, if one must be blunt with Speakers, do diminish the effectiveness and efficiency of Ghana’s Parliament.

 

1. Motions

A second avenue open to members of Parliament in their oversight responsibility is moving motions at plenary. A motion in Parliament means “a proposal made by a Member that Parliament or a Committee thereof do something, order something to be done, or express an opinion concerning some matter.”

As in Questions a motion may be of normal character or urgent in nature. Whether urgent or normal, the Speaker has to be notified. The Standing Orders provide that the Speaker shall be furnished with “the terms of a proposed statement” which a Member intends to make. That Order, 72, does not accord the Speaker the right to vet the statement but Speakers of Ghana’s Parliament have assumed that right. Indeed, by extension, Speakers of Ghana’s Parliament have assumed the right to vet motions and questions and, as we witnessed in July this year, even rewritten motions and placed it for Members of Parliament to move, usually in a very watered down form. The motion in question stood in the name of Hon. Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey who had prayed the House to move this motion: “………………….”

It was submitted against a backdrop of allegations both veiled and bare-faced against opposition elements from the Chairman of the ruling party and the President himself in respect of who might be behind recent fire outbreaks at many work places. The Speaker’s power to alter any such resort is limited to only urgent questions and only in situations where the urgent question which is asked without notice infringes any of the conditions set out in Order 67 (1). Motions, urgent or otherwise cannot be tampered by the Speaker or anybody once submitted.

It is sad to relate that our Speakers have assumed powers that the Standing Orders or Rules of Procedure do not grant them.  I have used this example not to attack the person of Rt. Hon. Doe Adjaho but because it is the most recent.  Indeed, previous Speakers have indulged themselves in this very unworthy cause.  The net effect of this really is to blunt Parliament.  And that is deficit in parliamentary oversight.  As simple as that.  So if Members of Parliament who should guard their powers of oversight rise to chorus “hear, hear” to such plain acts of misadventure from Speakers who themselves are not Members of Parliament, they should know that they are stabbing the institution of Parliament, that one arm of government, at the back.

 

 

1. Statement in Parliament

A third path that is open to Parliament in its oversight role is Statements that MPs make on the floor. A Minister may make a statement of government policy which should be limited to facts relevant for the information of Parliament. As well, A Member of Parliament may make a statement on a matter of urgent public importance which may attract a response from a Minister or the relevant person concerned. That is covered by rule 72 of our Orders.  In Ghana Speakers show their discomfort with or allergy to statements that have the potential of criticizing government by unduly stalling or pruning them to avoid embarrassment to governments.  That resort dilutes Parliament’s oversight responsibility.  It is a deficiency, it is a deficit.

1. Petition

Rule 76 allows MPs to submit petitions to the Speaker in respect of any commission or omission and the consequent request sought. I cannot recollect that since 1997 when I have been in Parliament any Member has availed himself of this opportunity to put government on its toes.  On the contrary the petition process is very labyrinthine.  Any  person who opts for it soon finds himself in a cul-de-sac.  The Rt. Hon. Peter Ala Adjetey suggested sanitizing that process by instituting a Petition Committee the terms of which have, ten years after Ala Adjetey’s departure, not been defined.  

1. Media and CSO Partnerships

A fifth avenue open to Parliamentarians which is outside plenary or sittings of Parliament is media engagement. Since the space accorded matters that come on the floor as part of the normal business is often very little MPs scheme to engage the media by press release, press conferences, and other media encounters to elicit response from government or put government on the carpet for excesses that might have been committed. CSOs may also be roped in to partner parliamentary groups to critique particular programmes or projects of government or aspects thereof.

OVERSIGHT THROUGH COMMITTEES

It appears the sharpest tool for oversight of the Executive is by Parliamentary Committees.  The sheer volume of business in Parliament makes it impossible to transact every business in plenary and hence the committee system. The committees track the work of ministries, departments, agencies and bodies and conduct special investigations into particular salient aspects of their policy and administration.

The committee system offers Parliament one good remedy to the defects in the democratic process. It offers a way to meet public demands for Parliaments to be less adversarial and more constructive in developing solutions for societal problems. The cooperative approach to politics (at the committee level) enhances public confidence in the ability of Parliament to resolve common problems.  If members quibble and take partisan and entrenched positions at Committees as was witnessed at the Public Accounts Committee sittings last year, that represents a disservice to democracy and inflicts a severe wound on Parliament’s oversight strength.

EFFECTIVE COMMITTEES

It is important to state that certain conditions precedent must exist to render parliamentary committees and indeed parliaments effective, responsible or relevant.

            1 - Committees must operate independently from party discipline. Functioning as autonomous, specialized investigators, MPs in Committees should be liberated from the clutches of party lines so that points of agreement can be identified and legitimate points of opinion can be expressed in less point-scoring or provocative terms.  By working together, individual members could examine issues and alternatives more rationally if both government and opposition parties were not whipping their party members towards preconceived positions.

Mr. Chairman, I am not oblivious to the fact that political parties have many informal means of keeping their parliamentarians in line, through the party’s whip: with the assurance of appointment to high-profile committees; the prospect of future preferment; membership of overseas delegations; the favourable recommendation of parliamentary leadership to the national party or the President, or conversely, the threat or loss of favour in the party’s scheme of operation.  How such patronage and disciplinary powers are exercised can work to blunt parliamentary oversight. Let us not forget that in Ghana, no thanks to the hybrid system via which the President is required to nominate a majority of his ministers from Parliament, a member of Parliament whose party controls the executive but who is not made a Minister is considered as “not having arrived” and hence almost every MP, even in opposition, wants to be noticed by the powers-that-be.

The party leadership can command much loyalty from its members and impose firm discipline because, ultimately, members rely on their parties for their seats in Parliament. This can also be an impediment to a committee’s ability to exercise its oversight functions effectively.

            2 - The non-partisan nature of committee work could be re-enforced by spreading chairship among the various parties represented in Parliament rather than allowing government party members to dominate these crucial positions, much less in situations where ministers are picked from parliament and the ruling party is thus manifestly weakened in terms of quality materials. The chairs of committee help to set the agenda for committee business and preside over and determine the course of proceedings and, hence, significantly influence outcomes. If such members are patently incompetent, parliament is significantly weakened. In the current setting one could mention the chairs of Finance Committee and the Committee on Energy as persons who are quite good. The Finance Committee chair, for instance, has noticeably built his personal capacity, significantly. The truth is that in Parliament today one can count on one’s finger tips materials that could pass the acid test. How is Parliament to be grown in such a manner?

The Standing Orders of Parliament, Order 205 enables a Committee of Parliament to summon any Minister through the clerk of the committee at the instance of the Chairman. If a chairman is unenthusiastic or refuses to summon any Minister, or is himself an embodiment of crass incompetence there will be a problem and the committee could be rendered toothless.  In the Phillipines House of Representatives, the particular aspects of government’s activities that must be investigated is decided by the majority of the committee members, not the Chairman. In Ghana’s Parliament where the ruling party has always had majority of seats in Parliament and hence have their members chair all but two of the committees in Parliament and have majority of members on all committees, this arrangement may not alter the status quo, if the MPs decide to play to the dictates of the Executive.

The Norwegian Parliament has since ten years ago decided that “a minority of Members of the Standing Committee on Security and Constitutional Affairs (one-third of the members) may initiate proceedings of the committee. This rule is essential for the protection of the minority factions in Parliament”. Far crucial to the effectiveness of a committee’s investigative authority is the power to require Ministers and Civil/public servants to appear to answer questions and to produce relevant documents, including access to sensitive information which may be circumvented by a resort to close sittings at the committee level.

Clause 3 of Article112 of the Constitution provides that upon a request of 15% of Members of Parliament, the Speaker shall summon a meeting to consider a specific subject matter. Order 38 of the Standing Orders captures this provision. Order 200 stipulates that in Committees the Standing Orders of Parliament shall be observed as far as may be practicable. Inferentially, a Committee Chairperson shall summon a meeting of a committee upon a request by a minimum of 15% of Members of the Committee. Since 1993 no committee has applied itself to this. It is possible that the majority Members of such a committee may vote against any attempt to summon a Minister or censure him if they are of the opinion that this may embarrass government, except that frequent killings of the initiative would portray the government party as endeavouring to cover up for government and hence put both government and that parliamentary party in bad light.  That Committees have not explored this is a deficit for Ghana’s Parliament.

            3 – Committees are an ideal vehicle for public participation in policy making. Instead of excluding the electorate after voting, continuing public involvement in parliamentary process could be directed through the less formal and less forbidding atmosphere of committee hearings. The public could only be in the public gallery as spectators when Parliament is sitting in plenary. The people, paradoxically, are strangers in the peoples’ or National Assembly as Parliament is otherwise called. The Committees provide for them a window of opportunity.  Ghana’s Parliament should open its Committees to public participation.  The exclusiveness of the current regime makes appear to be a club and it is one reason that attracts suspicions and attacks on Parliament.

            4 – As much as possible, Committee hearings must be done in public unless otherwise decided by the Chair. Parliament sits in public in plenary. Ironically, Parliamentary Committees in Ghana’s’ Parliament have by convention imposed on themselves a rule to sit in camera or have private sittings. It is only the Appointments Committee which by Order 172 (3) has been expressly enabled to hold their meetings in public. It is contended that the other Committees will breach no known rule if they conduct their proceedings in public as the Public Accounts Committee is doing now. The process of naming and shaming at public hearings provide some deterrence for wrong-doing.

            5 – Committees must be armed with facilities and services to conduct their enquiries – Support staff-competent, neutral and impartial in their own right, the right to summon witnesses and the funds to hire outside advisers and experts are vital for effectiveness.  Most MPs on Committees are not experts.  Committees must be sufficiently resourced to engage experts and professionals to conduct due diligence on various matters to enable MPs probe for relevant answers from the MDAs in pursuit of transparency and accountability.  If Committees cannot have resources to do this that is a veritable deficit.  The MPs themselves must be resourced adequately.  A minister of State is provided with a cross country vehicle and a saloon car to work.  These are purchased, serviced, maintained, fuelled, chauffer-driven at the expense of the State.  The MP who is to ensure that the Ministers and indeed the MDAs behave as expected has to take a loan to buy a vehicle to perform his statutory functions and he is descended on and scavenged.  How do the citizens expect the MPs to perform their functions?  Today, in Ghana the take home salary of MPs is less than $2,500 which does not compare to the $10,500 of Kenyan MPs or $7,200 of Tanzanian MPs.  Indeed in the West African sub-region it is only Guinea Bissau whose MPs are worse off than Ghana’s MPs.  Maybe the nation must confront this and objectively and impartially deal with this once and for all.    

            6 – Public and media opinion must be mobilized behind a committee and parliamentary business could be disrupted until a proper response emanates from a reluctant Executive.  Yet any observer of the Ghanaian media landscape would not fail to see how polarized the media is

.. Any issue that surfaces in Parliament is reported by the media, especially, the tabloids using their own partisan lenses.  This does not advance the cause of Parliament.

            7 – Greater scrutiny and analysis in committees leads to purer legislation, to less debate on the floor; to a more rational perspective of the scope of an issue and meaning and a broader basis for acceptance and legislation.

In all of these it must be acknowledged that parliaments are made up of people, a cross section of the society and represent constituencies on the wings mostly of political parties the primary purpose of which is to shape the political will of the people by disseminating information on political ideas, social and economic programmes and contest elections in order to be able to implement their ideas. No parliament is a uniform body and the responsibility of Parliament to keep government on its toes is primarily the burden of the minority or opposition parties.

In a contributory paper to the debate on “An Effective Parliament”, the Swedish Parliament noted that nowadays more and more emphasis is being put on Parliament’s oversight functions. “This is due to (the fact of) central government’s activities no longer being governed by detailed legislation and budget provisions but the general targets and result-centered demands. Parliament’s task becomes that of subsequently checking that these targets and demands are being met…”

Distinguished participants may recollect that in the first week of April this year the President inaugurated the Board of five persons to see to the general targets and result-centered promises he has made to the populace. How is the budget going to accommodate this? How is Parliament going to oversee the implementation and actualization of these promises within and without the budget allocations?  Well, the “Three Wise men” have begun talking.  To all intents and purposes, government is not delivering on their contract with the electorate.  In the midst of this it behooves Parliament to probe further. 

GOVERNMENT ASSURANCE COMMITTEE

Ghana’s Parliament has a unique Committee called Government Assurance Committee. The Standing Orders provide for that Committee to pursue all assurances given by Ministers and report to the House on the extent to which such assurances have been fulfilled. The provision does not specifically mention the President. The President, like the Prime Minister, is the Chief Minister and Ministers are just agents of the President. It should be possible for Parliament to summon the President or his representative, perhaps the Vice President, whom the Constitution expressly permits to participate in parliamentary discourse, to respond to assurances given by the President.

Within the Commonwealth Parliamentary set up Ghana’s pioneering role in holding governments to account via the vehicle of Government Assurance Committee has been lauded and recommended for adoption by other Parliaments, but  how functional and effective has that Committee been? Your guess is as good as mine!

In Ghana’s Parliament, Committees are clothed with wide powers. For instance Order 155 which replicates Article 103 (6) of the Constitution provides: “For the purposes of effectively performing its functions each Committee shall have such powers, rights and privileges as are vested in the High Court of justice or a justice of a High Court at a trial in respect of:

1. Enforcing the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath,
2. Compelling the production of documents; and
3. The issue of a commission or request to examine witnesses abroad”.

Article 103 (3) as expressed in Order 190 provides Committees of Parliament are “charged with such functions including the investigation and inquiry into the activities and administration of ministries and departments as Parliament may determine and such investigation and enquiries may extend to proposal for legislation”.

Order 192 provides further muscle. 192 (1) states: “An instruction by the House empowers a Committee to consider matters not otherwise referred to it, and (2) is emphatic: “no instruction shall be given to a Committee to do that which is empowered to do…”. If Committee work is choked or needs further investigation the Committee “may appoint a sub- committee and assign to it such of its functions as the committee considers fit”. (Order 194). Clearly therefore, Committees could be strong if Parliament wants them to be strong; they could be docile if we want them be docile. For instance, Article 78(3) prohibits any Minister from holding any other office of profit or emolument whether private or public and whether directly or indirectly unless granted permission by Mr. Speaker, ostensibly, acting on the report of the Parliamentary Committee called Committee on Members Holding Office of Profit. Ministers who, for instance, serve on boards have to appear before the Committee for clearance.  To the best of my knowledge, no Minister since 1993 has done this and parliament has not insisted. Obviously, such ministers are in breach of Article 78 (3).  If a minister or deputy minister who has not subjected himself or herself to this Committee and who is not known to have any other remunerative engagement boasts that he or she is going to make two million Euros or one million dollars before quitting his or her post, the people of Ghana should be concerned.  The representatives of the people, Parliamentarians, should be concerned.  That Parliament has not insisted on Ministers earning additional income to seek clearance is an abdication of its oversight responsibility. 

THREE HIGH PROFILE COMMITTEES

There are three Committees which stand out in our Parliament; the Finance Committee because it deals with the arithmetics of the financials of government, including the budget, the appropriations and the various loans and economics and business transactions. They work on virtually daily basis and are therefore seen and heard. Unfortunately, the Finance Committee concerns itself with the narrower issues of the ‘terms and conditions’ of such transactions.  The greater issue of the impact of such loans or economic and business transactions on the economy, the capacity of the country to apply the loan, its effect on debt-servicing, etc are not reckoned and that is why Parliaments elsewhere have Economy Committee, or National Development Committee or a Committee of such description with the remit to handle these other weighty issues. The failure of the Finance Committee to address itself to the other leg of its remit apparently because of the sheer volume of work and the failure of Parliament to establish a Committee with that responsibility is gross dereliction of duty.

Indeed, it should be the business of the Finance Committee to detect and question why in 2009 government over expenditure amounted to GH¢300 million.  Why over expenditure in 2010 exceeded GH¢800 million or why over expenditure totaled GH¢1.3 billion in 2011 and; the mother of all over expenditures – GH¢2.8 billion or ¢28 trillion in 2012.  Yes, 2012 was on election year but equally so was 2004 where there was not a penny of over expenditure.  In 2008 the government submitted a supplementary budget to cover an amount of GH¢180 million which was related to the elections, specifically, the Electoral Commission’s activities.  Professor Mills qualified that additional GH¢180 million as profligate expenditure.  How would the revered Professor have described the over-expenditure by GH¢2.8 billion?  Over-expenditure means government expenditure exceeds the statutory allocation captured in the Appropriation Act.  It means government not obeying the law.  Does Parliament merely sit and applaud?  Parliament must act to stop government from this gross non-conformity with the law.  Otherwise, making laws become a worthless enterprise.  If government itself would not respect the laws that are made would government have the moral right to expect citizens to obey laws that are made?

The Public Accounts Committee is the one committee which readily comes to mind when we come to deal with Parliament’s oversight even though, as I have often stressed, this is a wrongful notion.  All Committees of Parliament are charged with the responsibility of overseeing government. The other Committees simply shy away from delving deep into the affairs of the various MDAs especially when it involves enquiries, no thanks to assigning chairship to the depleted quality of government benches and who, inspite of themselves, would pander to the Executive because they also want to be made ministers.

The third Committee that we may accord some recognition when it is operating at full throttle is the Appointments Committee. We have seen its operation in 2001. We saw it in 2005 and we saw it in 2009 and I believe we all saw what we saw in 2013. We were not dreaming.

In the appointments of Ministers to form the cabinet of the President the Constitution emphasizes two issues and hence qualities. Article 76 (2) states that “The Cabinet shall assist the President in the determination of general policy of the government”. A minister, therefore, need to have the requisite proficiency and experience in order to be able to evolve policy in respect of the sector he/she may be superintending for aggregation and consolidation. Second, Article 78 (2) provides: “The President shall appoint such number of Ministers of State as may be necessary for the efficient running of the State”.

The Ministers are to help run the State efficiently and this means that such persons must be accomplished personalities in their respective fields of endeavour in order to add value to governance.  Where nominees who appear before the Appointment Committee cannot answer basic questions relating to the sectors where they have been nominated to Parliament has no business approving of such nominees.  If Parliament would, as it seems, give blanket approval to nominees by the President, as has been happening these years or, decide not to vet ministers at all, as happened in 1997 in the case of approving the then hold-over ministers, that is negligence of responsibility, indeed, a breach of trust.

Furthermore, if a President decides to reshuffle any Minister to any other office that person should come back to be vetted by Parliament to test his or her suitability for that new office.  Ministerial appointment is serious business and not job for the boys or girls or “thank you” gestures.  They affect national development, the lives of human beings.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the area of financial oversight which is the specialty of the Public Accounts Committee and which as I have emphasized should concern all the other Committees there is not one universally accepted standard for Parliamentary financial oversight.  However, there are a few very reputable international standards that offer guidance on oversight.  In this regard one may mention:

1. International Monetary Fund (IMF) – Manual on Fiscal Transparency
2. United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC)
3. International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI)
4. Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development – Best Practices for Budget Transparency

These standards and their applicability to Ghana must be explored in greater detail by our Parliament because the 2012 IMF Financial Sector Stability Assessment reports on a West African country states that the financial system continues to suffer from weak governance, including:

• non-transparent ownership structures
• deficiencies
• endemic perceptions of corruption

For a West African Country for 2012 the IMF FSSA report stated that corruption continues to be a significant problem, including in the court system and other public authorities.  If this is about Ghana, our Parliament must rise up and probe deeper.  If it is not about Ghana, the Akan adage should hold: “Egya to wo yonko bodwese mu a, sa nsuo si wo dee ho” to wit, if the beard of your neighbor catches fire you should place a bowl of water beside your own.

INSTITUTIONS FOR OVERSIGHT

Beyond what we have discussed there are some key institutions which Parliament must be overseeing.  The Electoral Commission is one such body.  Article 45 assigns functions to the Electoral Commission.  Article 45(b) is on the demarcation of electoral boundaries for both national and local government elections.  Article 47(1) and (3) obligate the Electoral Commission to divide the country up into constituencies provided that numbers of inhabitants in the constituency is, as nearly as possible, equal to the population quota. “Population quota” is defined as the number obtained by dividing the number of inhabitants of Ghana by the number of constituencies into which Ghana is divided”.  The Electoral Commission creates constituencies clinging to Article 47(1).  This is dependent on Art 47(3).  It is for Parliament to raise issues such as these.

Today, in Ghana our seats in Parliament have been raised from 140 to 275 all within 20 years and that is 96.5% increase.  In 1992, under Rawlings 60 new constituencies were created; under Kufuor in 2004, 30 constituencies were created and 45 under Mills.

Today, the NDC has 149 seats in Parliament; the NPP has 123.  The 123 seats are supported by many more Ghanaians than the NDC which commands 149 seats.   Representation is about people and the people’s representatives should be able to speak when it becomes clear that a group of people, however assembled, are purposed to skew the demarcation of boundaries of constituencies in favour of one party or the other.  Failure to do that would amount to condoning the corruption of representational democracy.  I have heard people say that we cannot allow a party to win in only two regions and assume government.  Such people do not rise up in the face of the contrivance by the Electoral Commission to gerrymander the creation of additional constituencies every ten years.  Such people should give an example of any democracy where at every 10 years new constituencies are created.  And Afari Gyan justifies that by saying that “all governments are the same they all pressurise” him to create constituencies.  Really?  So constituencies are born out of the exertion of pressure.  This certainly is not sustainable.

The members of the Commission, important as they are, are appointed by the President as provided for by Art 43(2).  It is important that the President is very widely consultative in this regard and Parliament must ensure this to avoid the situation of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission “cutting a poor image of himself” before the Supreme Court because, apparently, he was purposed to defend the indefensible – a corruption of the electoral process.

The evidence on the face of the pink sheet and Dr. Afari Gyan’s performance warrant an amendment by Parliament to the composition and appointment of the Electoral Commission.  Failure to do that will amount to a dereliction of duty.  We do not need a rocket scientist to tell us that if the E.C. conduct their business in 2016 as they did in 2012 they could lead the country to cataclysm.

Since 1992 the ruling party has always had majority of seats in Parliament.  In the second round of the 2008 elections the argument by some people was that the NDC had won majority of seats in Parliament so to allow for smooth governance they should have executive power.  I beg to disagree.  In an era where the majority party in Parliament positions itself to commit Parliament to approve whatever emanates from the Executive and thereby blunting the effectiveness of Parliament and, by implication abdicating the its responsibility, the situation where the Executive and Parliament are dominated by different parties would mark a water-shed in our governance scheme.  The Executive would be more diligent in the bills, loans, agreements and nominations they submit to Parliament for approval.  Parliament will apply a very fine comb in its scrutiny.  Governments will be forced to be more consultative and more consensual.   Ghana would reap positive dividends from such a platform.  The era of “cheer-leaders” and “yes men” would become a thing of the past and we shall find for ourselves a new yardstick to measure the performance of our governments.

NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR CIVIC EDUCATION

Article 231 establishes the NCCE and the very important functions that they are charged to perform are prescribed by Article 233.  The members of the Commission are appointed by the President in accord with Art 232(2).  Once appointed by the President nobody interferes in their job.  It is clear that if appointments are patronizing, the appointees will stand ready to appease the appointor.

In 1993 when the NCCE was being constituted a huge percentage of the personnel, were former cadres of Rawlings revolution which had shed its skin and was continuing in another form.  Parliament must ensure transparency, accountability, neutrality and impartiality in the conduct of their affairs.  Failure to do that will amount to a deficit in Parliament’s oversight responsibilities. 

COMMISSION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE

The functions assigned to the CHRAJ especially under Article 218(b) and (e) are very serious matters which requires a politically neutral and impartial body to diligently investigate.  They have to report to Parliament on the performance of their functions annually.  It is for Parliament to ensure that they are provided with the relevant resources to perform their onerous tasks.  Again, given the importance of their responsibilities their appointment cannot be left singularly in the hands of the President.  If the President has to do it he must do so with the prior approval of two thirds of the members of Parliament.  Removing any of them should also require â…” majority.  The appointments will therefore ensue from consensus-building.  The same manner of appointment could be prescribed for NCCE and the Electoral Commissioners.

Appointments, security of tenure, resource provision are the usual swords which appointing authorities wield to compromise appointees.  Parliament might tighten the screws in these areas so that discretion does not metamorphose into indiscretion in order to curry favours and reciprocal soft-treatment from such appointees.

AUDITOR-GENERAL

The Auditor-General is a tool for Parliament in its oversight of the Executive and the other constitutional creatures.  That is a given and Parliaments everywhere have the mandate to request it to look at specific areas and report to it.  That is the arrangement in the established democracies.  Article 178(7) provides:  “in the performance of his functions, the Auditor-General shall not be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority”.  By some unclarity or perhaps unintended construction Article 187(8) grants exemption to only the President when it provides: “paragraph (a) of clause 7 of this article shall not preclude the President acting in accordance with the advice of the Council of State, from requesting the Auditor-General in the public interest to audit, at any particular time, the accounts of any body or organization as is referred to in clause (2) of this article”.  Parliament must be appropriately positioned in the scheme of things, for the avoidance of doubt.  The Auditor-General is a tool for Parliament not the Executive as the Executive is the spending authority of the nation.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Article 88(3) makes the Attorney-General responsible for the initiation and conduct of all prosecutions of criminal offences.  If the Attorney-General is a Minister of State at the behest of the President, would he have the courage on his own to initiate criminal proceedings against his colleague Ministers with whom he sits in Cabinet meetings?

Article 88(4) provides: “all offences prosecuted in the name of the Republic shall be at the suit of the Attorney-General or any other person authorized by him in accordance with any law”.

Article 88(5) makes the Attorney-General responsible for the institution and conduct of all civil cases on behalf of the State; and all civil proceedings against the State shall be instituted against the Attorney-General as defendant.

The saga of the Judgment debts involving Woyome, CP, Isofoton, Waterville and others has clearly shown how an Attorney-General who is a Minister, could, as perception indicates, compromise the system by refusing to put in appearance for judgment to be given against the State, ostensibly for political, personal or whatever consideration that one may not need Octopus Paul to predict.  In times past the arguments about decoupling the Attorney-General’s office from ministerial encumbrance have been split.  On the face of recent developments, even if it is the gospel according to perception, would anybody dispute the split up of the Attorney-General’s department from a Cabinet ministerial appointment?  If the Attorney-General has to remain the principal legal advisor to the President does he have to be a minister to perform that function?  The answer certainly is no.  Parliament has to watch the radar at the sole Commissioner of Judgment debts.

STATISTICAL SERVICE

The Government Statistician is charged with the responsibility for the collection, compilation, analysis and publication of socio-economic data on Ghana….”Article 186(2).  The Government Statistician is appointed by the President (Article 185(3)).  When the 2012 IMF Financial Sector Stability Assessment report states that a country’s financial system continues to suffer from weak governance, including:

• non-transparent ownership structures, and
• deficiencies in financial reporting

it is an indictment of the Government Statistician.  The Parliament in that country must sit up.

MASS MEDIA

The mass media is increasingly widening its horizon in their set agenda of direct involvement of the citizenry in the democratic process.  The print media is still very relevant in Ghana since, as we all do know, on daily basis it is what they carry on their pages that for good or bad, saturate the atmosphere, and attract commentary from all manner of men and women, describing themselves, as they often do, as social commentators, never political or economic commentators and yet what they churn out is all political stuff much of it is of propandist proportions.  The more pontifical ones are addressed to “Massa” or the one who insists that “I have the documents here to prove everything”.

It appears it is only in Ghana that journalists, newspaper columnist and editors every morning invade our radio and television stations and inflict themselves on us to justify what they write or what they are unable to write in their newspapers.  Sad to say most of the newspapers are tabloids which themselves contain nothing of substance.  You may exempt just a couple of such newspapers, the rest of them quality for descriptions other than newspapers.  Gradually, Ghanaians will sift the wheat from the chaff.  I trust we will get there.

Be that as it may, it is important to mobilize public and media opinion to support the work of parliament, otherwise the effort will be a heculian one, especially given the fact that Parliamentarians themselves do not belong to the class of cherished species.  Apart from the police, available statistics indicate, Members of Parliament are the most unloved group of persons in Ghana.  Parliament needs the media, a free media to partner it to effectively discharge its oversight responsibilities.

Chapter 12 of the 1992 constitution is on the freedom and independence of the Media.  Governments are not comfortable with the functions of the Media Commission in respect of “insulting the State-owned media from governmental control” (Article 167(c)) and also in respect of the Commission appointing “the Chairmen and other members of the governing bodies of public corporations managing the State-owned media”.  This discomfiture is what leads governments to try to influence the composition of the Media Commission.  Parliament must ensure that the proper thing is always done in order to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the media for mass communication or information as Article 167(a) enjoins.

THE JUDICIARY

Mr. Chairman, I promise to be very circumspect in the affairs of the judiciary.  I am not timorous but as a very good friend often soliloquizes when confronted with a scary challenge:  “I am not afraid but I fear small, small”.  To the men and women of the wig and gown fraternity, I pledge I will not go to town on them.

Article 125(1) of the Constitution provides in its opening:  “Justice emanates from the people….”.  The word ‘emanate’ means ensue, emerge or originates.   If justice emerges or originates from the people of Ghana then that justice should be reflective of our conception of truthfulness, honesty, integrity.   These concepts themselves are born out of our traditions and cultures, our humanity.

Article 125(3) provides among others that, “neither the President nor Parliament nor any organ or agency of the President or Parliament shall have or be given final judicial power”.  My understanding of the language and tenor of that construction is that, yes the final judicial power vests in the Judiciary but other ancillary or residual judicial powers could be exercised by the President or Parliament.

In the 2012 IMF Financial Sector Stability Assessment report on a country in West Africa there is a statement, listen to it:  “Corruption continues to be a significant problem, including in the court system and other public institutions”.

If this situation relates to Ghana, what it will mean is that the Judiciary is perverting justice, they are turning truth on its head and bastardizing honesty, fairness and equity and plunging the country back to the stone age dictum of survival of the fittest, of might in whatever form.

If indeed justice emanates from the people and Parliament is the representation of the people then Parliament must ensure that judicial power is exercised for the people and not against the people.  If Parliament fails this test it will be a monumental deficit in their exercise of oversight responsibility.  Article 34(1) of the Constitution charges Parliament to pursue a course “for the establishment of a just and free society”.  That should be the steel amour for Parliament.

THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING COMMISSION

Chapter 6 of our Constitution is on the Directive principles of State Policy which provides the agenda, the political, economic, and socio-cultural goals and, indeed, objectives of our national development.

The National Development Planning Commission which is charged with the responsibility of crafting a long-term National Development Plan (Art 87) borne out of the contours provided by Chapter 6 of Constitution and which plan should have a buy-in from all stakeholders, including in particular, the political parties as provided under Article 34(1) is in the arm-pit of the President.  Mr. Chairman, as we all do know armpits are not places that are accessible at all, excep