(Public Accounts Committee to sit from August 19)

Page 16, Aug 12, 2009

Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament will conduct a six-day public sitting to probe into the activities of some public institutions.
During the sitting, which begins from Wednesday, August 19 and ends on August 24, this year, the PAC will consider performance audit reports on some institutions submitted to Parliament by the Auditor General.
The Chairman of the PAC, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, who announced this, mentioned the Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General of Management of Police Residential Accommodation, Performance Audit Report of Business Registration and Performance Audit Report on the Accountability Arrangements in Solid Waste Management as some of the issues that would be considered.
Others are the Performance Audit Report on the Public Servants Housing Loan Scheme and the Report of the Auditor-General on the Public Accounts of Pre-University Educational Institutions for the four-year period ending December 31, 2004.
Mr Kan-Dapaah, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Afigya-Sekyere East, was speaking at a three-day sensitisation workshop organised by the Canadian Parliamentary Centre, a non-governmental organisation, for members of the Parliamentary Press Corps at Sogakope in the Volta Region at the weekend.
The PAC has a membership of 25, which is made up of 13 from the Majority side and 12, including its chairman from the Minority side.
During its deliberations, the chairman of the committee has no voting right except where there is a tie that he could use his vote to break.
Mr Kan-Dapaah, therefore, debunked the assertion that the Minority could use the exercise as witch-hunting, explaining that by the country’s democratic practices, it was always the Majority which had its way.
For his part, the Director of Public Affairs of Parliament, Mr Jones Kugblenu, commended the media for their role in ensuring the success of the previous public sitting of the PAC.
He, however, urged them to do follow-up checks after the report of the PAC had been adopted by Parliament, to find out whether its recommendations had been complied with.
The Director of the Parliamentary Centre, Dr Rasheed Draman, urged members of the Parliamentary Press Corps to use their stories to generate the interest of the general public in proceedings of Parliament.
He cautioned them against sensationalism and advised them to let their write-ups during the PAC sittings be devoid of partisan considerations.