Speaker calls for modern and improved Parliament House
Parliament passed all Bills presented by Government
Speaker opens second session of Parliament
Accra (Greater Accra) 15 January 2002 - The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey on Tuesday formally opened the first sitting of the second session of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic and commended members for their high degree of consultation and consensus building.
He said such consensus building had enabled the leadership of the House to handle deliberations in a matured manner thereby blunting the sharp edges of conflict and promoting compromise and conciliation.
Mr Adjetey said this atmosphere pointed to a threshold of a promising year following the first year, which had been promising and owing its success to the efforts of the high degree of both the majority and minority sides of the House.
At the session were some members of the Council of State, the Diplomatic Corps, traditional rulers, service commanders as well as Dr Edward Mahama, Leader of the Peoples National Convention and Mr Dan Lartey of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP).
He said there were serious doubts as to whether there was to be a peaceful transfer of power, however, these forebodings of doom never materialised.
The Speaker said it was God, who made it possible for the country for the first time in its 44 years of independent nationhood to witness a transfer of power from one democratically elected government to another.
Mr Adjetey said, even though, the most important function of Parliament was the legislative function, the Constitution, however, imposed on Parliament a variety of other powers and functions which were investigative, deliberative or administrative.
He said the exercise of these functions was necessary to ensure that the exercise of the executive power by the executive arm of government was kept under constant watch and check so that it did not lend itself to wanton abuse.
Mr Adjetey said there were checks and balances to ensure that the executive arm of government, the legislative and judiciary worked in conformity with the law to ensure that the abuse of power was reduced to the minimum.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 January 2002 - Mr Alban Bagbin, the Minority Leader, on Tuesday called for a new form of relationship between the Majority and Minority that dwelt on co-operation, consultation, compromise and consensus building.
"Therefore the saying in Parliament that the Minority 'have their say' and the Majority 'have their way' defeats consensus building. Perhaps, all should 'have their say' but national interest 'should have its way.'"
Mr Bagbin was addressing the opening of the second session of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic in Accra. He said, "Consensus in essence, involves a form of negotiations of positions. Therefore, to reach a consensus on any issue, parties have to make a minimum movement away from their entrenched positions".
The Minority leader said the results of the last elections and the numerical arrangement in Parliament gave a reasonable cause for co-operation in all spheres of politics.
"A minority that is enabled to play its role and actually plays that role constructively builds the confidence of the people in the system." He said his group would pursue the virtues of accountability and transparency in government to the hilt.
"It is the duty of the Minority to make government open, transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of the people."
Mr Bagbin said the greatest threat to any democratic process in any country was for the Minority to crumble under an overbearing executive power.
He called for a bipartisan caucus as mechanism for consensus building. "The caucus could regularly take up national development issues prior to their introduction, debate and consideration on the floor of the House or in committee."
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 January 2002 - The Majority Leader, Papa Owusu Ankomah on Tuesday urged the Minority to cut down on their walkouts from the Chamber to ensure smooth parliamentary work that would deepen and strengthen democracy. He said walkout although could be a powerful parliamentary weapon yet its overuse could negate its effect.
Papa Owusu-Ankomah was delivering his opening speech at the first meeting of the second session of Parliament in the Fourth Republic.
He said: "We want to have less walkouts. We will ensure that our colleagues do not abandon the match before the referee blows the whistle."
"In democracy, it is to be recognised that the view of the Minority is respected. However, the views of the Minority cannot represent the views of the Majority."
Papa Owusu-Ankomah said "there is the urgent need for Parliament as a vital component part of the machinery of governance to facilitate the achievement of the socio-economic and development agenda, which the sovereign people of Ghana mandated the government of the day through the ballot box, to execute".
He said the Majority, "will continue to build bridges; we will continue to reach out to our colleagues on the other side of the same road, which we are mutually bond by history and providence to tread as we continue on our journey towards entrenching democracy and the search for peace, stability and prosperity for our people".
Papa Owusu-Ankomah described the opening of Parliament by the Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey as "symbolic" since it was a departure from the previous practice of the executive performing that function.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 January 2002 - The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey on Tuesday said the Parliament House and its chamber was to small to allow for expansion should the number of members be increased as provided by the 1992 Constitution.
He said the building was also too small to provide for offices for all the Members of Parliament or even a substantial number of them while the ancillary building popularly referred to as "Job 600" had been under alterations and renovations for the past 10 years to provide office accommodation to the members to discharge their duties.
Mr Adjetey expressed this concern in an address he delivered on the occasion of the formal opening of the first sitting of the second session of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic.
He said, even though, the President made reference to the matter in his message on the state of the nation last year not much progress had been made since then.
"We all understand the difficulties that we have been going through as a nation but it is realised that the maintenance of democracy of this nation is a fundamental commitment."
Mr Adjetey said the country had never had a Parliament House conceived and constructed as such as was the case with many countries adding that the "Old Parliament House" was intended to be a town hall for the people of Accra.
Mr Adjetey said in the final analysis "we must take the decision now to provide for this nation, parliamentary buildings worthy of our name. We must be prepared to put our money where our mouth is and not boast about our commitment to democracy without being prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to sustain it".
The Speaker said efforts had been made through the years to strengthen the pillars that underpin Parliament. The Parliamentary Service Board had given approval for the establishment of a Legal Department.
The Legal Department would include an office of Parliamentary Counsel responsible for the drafting of legislation so that backbenchers could have the services of experts to assist them in drafting private members bills.
An Office of Policy Analysis was also being established to provide technical research support to members of Parliament while approval had also been given for the establishment of a Department of Public Affairs to deal with relations between Parliament and the public.
Mr Adjetey said the provision of Information Technology for the effective functioning of Parliament had received support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under an Internet connectivity project.
The UNDP was also sponsoring a local area network (LAN) and a wide area network (WAN) for the whole of Parliament that were all designed to improve the effectiveness and performance of Members and its committees.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 January 2002 - Parliament reconvened on Tuesday amidst legal technicalities, partisan insinuations, hecklings and laughter with the Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey declaring that he was the only one to be addressed in the House as parliamentary practice demanded.
He said no other fellow should be recognised, acknowledged or addressed as protocol demanded even on ceremonial days in the House expect him.
He said by parliamentary practice it was only the Speaker, who should be addressed whether the person came by invitation or was there in his or her official capacity.
Mr Ala Adjetey made the declaration when a thunderous applause greeted the Minority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin's opening speech in which he acknowledged the presence of the members of the Council of State, the Diplomatic Corps and chiefs, who were invited to witness the opening of the first meeting of the second session of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic.
The ovation came from the Minority because the Majority Leader, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, who spoke first before Mr Bagbin did not observe those protocols.
The Minority thought their leader had scored a political point over his opponent, which made the Majority uncomfortable and Mr Sampson K. Boafo, Ashanti Regional Minister, promptly leapt to his feet on a point order.
Mr Boafo drew the Speaker's attention to the fact that all those in the House were strangers and that by parliamentary practice they needed not to be recognised as such and that it was only the Speaker that members should address.
The Speaker upheld the point of order and said he had given an earlier ruling on a similar issue when the President John Agyekum Kufuor presented the State of the Nation Address to Parliament last year and was accused of not addressing those present in the House.
Mr Adjetey said he ruled in that case that the President was "impeccably right" in not addressing strangers to the House. He said constitutionally the President cannot participate in the work of the House but the Vice President has the right to take part in the deliberations of the Legislature but only that he could not vote.
With that ruling, Mr Bagbin threw the House into a further uproar when he said he was welcoming the NPP into government after being in the "political wilderness" for 29 years. The Speaker had earlier said in his opening address that the NPP had been in that state for that period.
The Speaker, however, refused to allow further point of orders from the Majority side and gave way to the Minority Leader to continue with his presentation at the end of which his side stood up and gave him ovation.
Earlier, Mr Adjetey inspected a guard of honour mounted at the forecourt of Parliament by a detachment of the Ghana Police made up of 60 men and three officers under the command of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mr Nelson Senu while the Police Band under the command of Chief Superintendent of Police
Charles Nimako provided music.
The Speaker's inspection of the guard was a novelty in the parliamentary history of the country since no such officer of the Legislature had ever undertaken that venture.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 15 January 2002 - Parliament last year passed all the bills that were presented to it by the Executive Arm of Government to enable the state to function.
Principal among the 23 bills passed were the Criminal Code (Repeal of Criminal Libel and Sedition Laws) (Amendment) Act, 2001, (Act 602), the Bank of Ghana Act, 2001, the National Honours and Investiture Act, 2001 and the National Reconciliation Act, 2001, (Act 611).
Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, Speaker of Parliament, said this at the formal opening of the first sitting of the Second Session of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic in Accra on Tuesday.
He said 17 Legislative Instruments were laid before the House last year adding that although Parliament had a power of annulment of such instruments under Article 11 (7) of the Constitution, none of the instruments suffered the fate of annulment.
Mr Adjetey said Parliament resorted to the procedure of persuading the relevant ministers to withdraw an unacceptable instrument and to replace it with an acceptable one in cases where it found some instruments unsatisfactory.
In the exercise of its deliberative function, Parliament had had to extensively debate under motions and resolutions, a wide range of domestic and foreign policy matters including 25 International Agreements.
During last year, 169 questions were submitted by members and answered by ministers; while 90 statements were made by members and 14 by Ministers on policy issues to bring to the fore for public scrutiny, problems concerning their constituencies and of urgent public importance.
Mr Adjetey said many appointments by the President could be made only with the prior approval of Parliament and under the existing Standing Orders; this approval had been given only after a report of the Parliamentary Appointments Committee had been submitted to the House and debated.
He commended the appointments committee for conducting its business so effectively and for the business-like and transparent manner in which they had conducted the approval process of the President's nominees for ministerial appointments.
The Speaker said the procedure by which ministers and other members of the house were obliged to answer questions submitted by Members of Parliament was extremely useful in exposing wrong-doings or injustice where it took place thus keeping ministers on their toes and getting them to discharge their functions and ensuring transparency in their duties.
Mr Adjetey said within the next few weeks, Parliament expected to receive the State of the Nation Address from the President, which would be followed by the 2002 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government, leading to the passing of the relevant Appropriations Act.
He said information had also been received that a number of bills including the Courts (Amendment) Bill, the Ghana Maritime Authority Bill, the Ghana Investments Fund Bill, the Forest Protection (Amendment) Bill and the Timber Resources Management (Amendment) Bill would be submitted.
Other bills would include the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill and Forest Plantation Development Fund (Amendment) Bill. The House would consider all of them before passing them into law, so would be a number of Legislative Instruments, International Agreements and other papers.
He said Parliament had been relatively weak because Ghana had had an executive branch of government throughout its 44 years of independent nationhood with a Parliament of less than half that period.
The Speaker said there was widespread realisation of this state of affairs by the international community and there was now a National Governance Programme and the National Institutional Renewal Programme to remedy the weaknesses of Parliament and to strengthen its pillars to enable it to function effectively.
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