Parliament under review

02/01/12 Page 13

Article: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

WHEN Parliament went on recess on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 for the Christmas festivities, the House ended the Third Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Fourth Republic and also the Third Meeting of the Fifth Parliament.
During the Third Session, that is, from January to December 2011, many issues came before the august House for deliberation and this piece is meant to take a retrospective look at some of the major happenings in Parliament over the period.
Even though the House passed a number of bills during the year, three that were remarkable and engaged the attention of both Members of Parliament (MPs) and the general public were the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill, the University of Energy and Natural Resources Bill and the University of Health and Allied Sciences Bill.
From the beginning of the First Meeting, the House was poised to pass the PRMB, since, though the country had started the production oil in December the previous year, there was no law in place to guide the management of revenue accruing from its sales.
The country, therefore, heaved a sigh of relieve when, after the bill had gone through a lot of amendment, it was finally passed on February 3, 2011.
However, those who followed the journey of the passage of the bill would recall that Clause Five on whether the country could use the oil as collateral or not became the bone of contention and a tug–of-war between the Majority and the Minority sides of the House.
In the end, as they say in parliamentary parlance, though the Minority had its say, the Majority had its way and the clause was amended to enable the country to use the oil as collateral.
The passage of the two bills for the establishment of the two public universities to be sited in the Brong Ahafo and the Volta regions did not meet with any difficulty from both sides of the House during the Third Meeting.
Parliament exercises its control over the country’s purse by approving loans contracted by the executive for development and the approval of budgets.
Well, during the year, the House approved a number of loan agreements, but two of such loans which attracted discussion both in the House and outside the House were the $3 billion Chinese loan and the $105,370,177 loan from the Brazil Development Bank for the purchase of the Ember 190 and related logistics support and the construction of one hangar.
Even though the House was on recess after the Second Meeting, the MPs were recalled to approve the $3 billion Chinese loan in August. After an intense five-day debate, the House approved the loan through a majority decision.
The $105,370,177 loan from the Brazil Development Bank, which was approved on July 20, 2011, also caught the attention of most Ghanaians.
The approval of the loan became an issue because the Minority used the occasion to pay the Majority back for opposing a similar loan facility for the purchase of the Presidential Jet when the current Minority was in government but in the end the loan was approved.
One issue that happened in Parliament and which cannot be forgotten was when the Speaker, Mrs Joyce Bamford-Addo, unceremoniously left the House during sitting on May 20, 2011.
Before she left, she accused the Majority Leader, Mr Cletus Apul Avoka, of taking an unco-operative stance.
The Speaker’s action followed her ruling that the Deputy Majority Leader, Mr Rashid Pelpuo, should withdraw the word “chaotic” he had used to describe the atmosphere in the House that day.
But Mr Pelpuo dragged his feet over the apology.
What seemed to be the last straw was the attempt by Mr Avoka to defend the Mr Pelpuo and the circumstances in which he had used the word.
Mrs Bamford-Addo was, however, prevailed upon to return to preside over the day’s sitting by the leadership of the House.
On March 18, the MP for Afram Plains North, Mr Aboagye Didieye, made a bad name for himself when he was referred to the Privileges Committee of Parliament for describing MPs as womanisers during discussions on the ‘Dwaso Nsem’ show on Tema-based Adom FM.
The Second Deputy Speaker, Professor Mike Aaron Oquaye, took the decision when one MP raised the issue on the floor of the House, but the committee is yet to submit its findings to the House for a final decision to be taken on the MP.
The President’s sessional address on February 17 and the refusal of the Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu to join the leadership of the House to usher the President out, as tradition demands, attracted a lot of discussions, with the Majority side demanding an apology and a possible referral to the Privileges Committee.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stood on his grounds and declared that he owed nobody any apology, describing the President’s address as divisive.
The high point during the Third Meeting of the Third Session was the presentation of the 2012 Budget to the House by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, on Wednesday, November 16, 2011.
The House took five weeks to scrutinise and approve the budget. While the Majority described the budget as an encompassing budget to fulfill the ‘Better Ghana Agenda’, the Minority described it as a recycled budget full of unfulfilled promises to deceive Ghanaians to vote for the NDC during the 2012 general elections.
All in all, Parliament had an eventful third session, a development which compelled the Majority Leader, Mr Cletus Avoka, to state that the House “continues to deliver on its mandate”, albeit under difficult and challenging circumstances.
“I wish to thank the chairpersons of committees, ranking members and all members who have worked on bills, not forgetting the Winnowing Committee, of which my colleague the Minority Leader played an active role. I thank members of the committee for their commitment and industry in getting these bills processed and passed,” he said.
He admitted that there were still a number of bills before some committees and appealed to the leadership of those committees to endeavour to submit those bills to the House for deliberation so that they could be passed before the dissolution of Parliament next year.
These bills include the Presidential Transition Bill, the College of Education Bill, the Intestate Succession and the Property Rights of Spouses bills.
Even though he was happy that Ghana’s democracy was receiving praise around the world, he called on members of the House to guard the basic tenets of democracy jealously and called for respect for individual opinions and views in Parliaments.
For his part, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu reiterated the commitment of the Minority to co-operate with the Majority side to facilitate the implementation of government policies and called on the Majority side to reciprocate that gesture.
”We expect this to be reciprocated by the Majority as well. Oftentimes, some people get afflicted with the we-and-them, winner-takes-all mentality, but Parliament is an arm of government with its own system of operation,” he noted.
Both leaders commended the Speaker and her deputies, the Clerk to Parliament, Mr Emmanuel Kwasi Anyimadu, and his deputies, staff of the Parliamentary Service and the Parliamentary Press Corps for discharging their duties effectively to ensure a successful end of the session.