The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has attributed the challenges faced by Parliament in effectively carrying out its oversight role over the Executive Arm of Government to the inadequate distribution of resources.
Bagbin argues that the government’s allocation of 600 million Cedis is insufficient to empower the legislature for scrutinizing the executive, which consistently receives allocations in the billions of Cedis.
Addressing a Press Soiree in Ho, Volta Region, as part of the commemoration of 30 years of uninterrupted parliamentary democracy in Ghana, Mr. Bagbin underscored the need for reforms to strengthen parliamentary governance in the country.
“If the Presidency in an annual budget can take, for example, 3 billion cedis and the whole arm that is to hold the president to account is given about 600 million cedis, now how can that weak body hold that mighty executive to account, how is it going to happen?.”
The Speaker further noted that the challenges in overseeing the executive are compounded by the media’s lack of support from the government. He highlighted the crucial role of the media in supervising all three arms of government and lamented that, in Ghana, the media is often perceived as a private enterprise with little regard for its conditions of service or accountability mechanisms.
“If the media, which is supposed to hold all three of us accountable, is not even catered for, the media is seen in Ghana as a private enterprise and nobody cares whether there are conditions of service or not.”