Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu
An Advisory Board for the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has been inaugurated by the sector Minister Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu with a call by him for the country to re-look at how to advance the cause of parliamentary democracy through effective representation in Parliament.
The minister, who is also the Majority Leader, said Parliament is the fulcrum of democratic governance and ought to be properly positioned to play its deliberative and oversight functions very well.
According to the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, the public could make informed choices by listening to deliberations that go on in Parliament.
“We are the gatekeepers of public funds and would have to effectively interrogate any financial request by the government,” he said, adding that matters that come to Parliament under any democracy have to be dispassionately and objectively deliberated on.
He said that “Unfortunately, the trend that we are establishing now is not advancing the cause of growing Parliament and for that matter we are not expanding the frontiers of our democracy or democratic governance.”
He said as things stand now, parliamentary candidates and MPs are getting elected because of the ‘size of their pockets’ and not on what they can offer to advance the cause of democratic governance, stressing after being elected most of these MPs abandon their parliamentary duties and chase contracts to replenish their pockets.
“Sometimes when it comes to making laws in Parliament, which is one of the major functions of Parliament, you can only see not more than 30 members deliberating,” he bemoaned.
He said situations like this and many more affect the effectiveness of Parliament and true representation by Members of Parliament.
The minister, who is the chairman of the Advisory Board, said the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs is not part of the legislature but rather part of the executive which usually ‘interfaces’ with all the three arms of government and constitutional bodies.
Other members of the Advisory Board are the Chief Director of the Ministry, Dr. Evans Aggrey-Darko; Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh; the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education, Josephine Nkrumah; the Executive Director of the African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr. Rasheed Draman; the Director of Academic Affairs of the Ghana Armed Forces and Staff College, Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso; the Head of the Department of Political Science at University of Ghana, Dr. Maame A.A. Gyekye-Jandoh and the Clerk to Parliament, Cyril Oteng Nsiah.
They will be in office to assist the ministry with their various expertise till January 5, 2025
By Thomas Fosu Jnr