Month: November 2013

Member of Parliament for Obuasi West and a Member of Parliament’s Finance committee, Kwaku Kwarteng says the decision to by government to subsidies electricity tariff by 25 percent will cost the country in future.

According to him “we ought to understand the implications and how the government intend to deal with it…; government ought to be forthcoming.’’

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP also questioned where government is going to raise the money for the subsidy from. “We all know what is happening in the economy, the 2014 budget statement is almost ready, the allocations have been made…’’

‘’So the subsides where is it going to come from,’’ he quizzed.

Mr. Kwarteng charged government to show how it intends to finance the subsidy.

“It is entirely possible for government to come out now and say reduce the announced level… A year from today we will be told that utility companies are so indebted that the consumer now has to pay more,’’ he said.

‘’If that happens what it means is that government just played propaganda, it shifted the burden to next year so that it will be back on consumers. Those are the issues we[NPP] are raising and i think government must be clear with us how it is going to finance this subside,’’ Mr. Kwarteng stressed.

He stated that government is pretending to bring relief when “in fact a year from now consumers will be invited to either pay the debt accumulated by the utility company or will need to make do with the inferior quality of service.’’

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The Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, has stated that strengthening Parliament’s financial oversight responsibilities is critical to combating corruption.

He noted that “the evil enterprise of corruption which has become cancerous in Ghana”, explaining that Parliament has no option than to demonstrate extreme concern about the problems and threats that corruption poses to the stability and security of the country.

He said corruption undermines state institutions and the values of democracy, as well as cultural and traditional values and the justice system. According to him these work against sustainable development and the rule of law.

The Minority Leader made these remarks when he delivered the 2013 Liberty Lecture at the Auditorium of the British Council on Tuesday on the theme: “The Deficit in Parliamentary Oversight in the Fight against Corruption.”

He stated that corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting scarce funds intended for development which undermine government’s ability to provide basic services such as potable water, schools, shelter, clinics, toilet facilities, farming inputs to the populace and thus aggravate inequality and injustice.

He said corruption discourages foreign aid and investment.

“As representatives of the people, Members of Parliament ought to be extremely concerned about the increasing links between corruption and the other forms of crime both domestic and international,” he stated.

He explained further that modern Parliaments have seven main functions including: Representation (of voters); Legislation or law-making; Power of the purse or Financial Control; Oversight of the executive and the independent constitutional bodies; Deliberation; Information transmission or dissemination; and Problem resolution.

“The legitimacy of Parliament is measured by these roles that they perform and how effective they are. A strong Parliament is one that has fair and unbiased rules, a capacity to represent the will of the people and a reasonable and appropriate role in decision making. A Parliament with no substantial role in the political process or in making binding decisions is a toothless, rubber-stamp and inconsequential entity,” he noted.

Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu also noted that the sharpest tool for oversight of the Executive is by Parliamentary Committees, as the sheer volume of business in Parliament makes it impossible to transact every business in plenary and hence the committee system.

“The committee system offers Parliament one good remedy to the defects in the democratic process. It offers a way to meet public demands for Parliaments to be less adversarial and more constructive in developing solutions for societal problems. The cooperative approach to politics (at the committee level) enhances public confidence in the ability of Parliament to resolve common problems,” the Minority Leader said.

“If members quibble and take partisan and entrenched positions at Committees as was witnessed at the Public Accounts Committee sittings last year, that represents a disservice to democracy and inflicts a severe wound on Parliament’s oversight strength”, he added.

According to him, for Parliamentarians to exercise financial oversight responsibility over the Executive as well as ensuring that good governance continues, adding “Parliament and Parliamentarians must be mindful of the principles of sound management of public affairs and public resources.”

According to him, Members of Ghana’s Parliament must themselves understand the principles of responsibility, equality before the law and urgent need to develop, imbibe and foster a culture of rejection of corruption and impurity.

Building the capacity of Parliamentarians to exercise this responsibility, he said is of the urgent necessity, noting that “this is not a one-year or even four-year effort as it requires much time.”

Any objective assessment of the performance of MPs in Ghana, he said, would yield the names of Papa OwusuAnkomah, Alban Bagbin, Doe Adjaho (the current Speaker), W. O. Boafo, Dr. Anthony AkotoOsei, Dr.Kunbuor the Majority Leader and himself as very knowledgeable and experienced and prolific debaters and law-makers.

“These people are not instant products, they are men of the days before yesterday. The rather high attrition rate of MPs attributable, primarily to the increasing monetization of our internal party politics is proving detrimental to parliamentary work. The political parties have to do serious introspection as this practice of opening the slice gates at the end of every four years is not advancing our democracy in any way,” he said.

He noted that it is important for Ghanaians “to acknowledge that the prevention, detection and fight against corruption and healing, reviving and uplifting the instruments for good democratic governance is a responsibility of all stakeholders including groups outside the public sector such as CSOs, NGOs and community-based organizations.”

“Many people recognize the deficit in the oversight responsibilities of Parliament. Notwithstanding, correcting the deficiencies in the system should be a collective responsibility even though, admittedly, the role of Parliament is, admittedly, very huge. Parliament is capable of elevating its performance since, as we have seen, a lot of the problems are self-inflicted,” he added.

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Member of Parliament for Obuasi West and a Member of Parliament’s Finance committee, Kwaku Kwarteng says the decision to by government to subsidzies electricity tariff by 25 percent will cost the country in future.

According to him “we ought to understand the implications and how the government intend to deal with it…; government ought to be forthcoming.’’

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP also questioned where government is going to raise the money for the subsidy from. “We all know what is happening in the economy, the 2014 budget statement is almost ready, the allocations have been made…’’

‘’So the subsides where is it going to come from,’’ he quizzed.

Mr. Kwarteng charged government to show how it intends to finance the subsidy.

“It is entirely possible for government to come out now and say reduce the announced level… A year from today we will be told that utility companies are so indebted that the consumer now has to pay more,’’ he said.

‘’If that happens what it means is that government just played propaganda, it shifted the burden to next year so that it will be back on consumers. Those are the issues we[NPP] are raising and i think government must be clear with us how it is going to finance this subside,’’ Mr. Kwarteng stressed.

He stated that government is pretending to bring relief when “in fact a year from now consumers will be invited to either pay the debt accumulated by the utility company or will need to make do with the inferior quality of service.’’

citifmonline.com

The Deputy Minister of education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has reminded Ghanaians who are pessimists and speak as if Ghana is a hopeless country to revise their notes.

According to Mr. Ablakwa there is the need to start telling the success story of Ghana to the world and stop criticizing because the country has chalked many successes which need to be told.

The deputy minister, speaking at the launch of Abbeam Technology Institute urged Ghanaians to stay calm and not be dismayed by the economic situation of the country because according to him there is nothing easy to come by on earth.

“We speak and behave as if there is no hope in Ghana, whatever difficulties you are going through it is just for a period of time so do not speak as if Ghana is a hopeless country; try and tell the success story of Ghana,” he urged.

Mr. Ablakwa called for the need for Ghanaians to co-exist peacefully with each other, be each other’s keeper and ensure that there is safety social networks which make everybody feel that he or she is part of society.

Touching on what government intends doing to uplift the image of tertiary institutions; Mr. Ablakwa revealed that his outfit has charged the Ghana Accreditation Board (GAB) to ensure every tertiary institution complies with the GAB requirement for establishing a school.

“Though we want more private tertiary institutions to supplement the existing ones of the state, we need to be careful not to compromise their quality, we need to make sure that their quality is always guaranteed,” he said.

He said government is committed to partner private stakeholders to build more tertiary institutions so that the damming problem of people completing Senior High School, but not getting admission to tertiary institutions will be a thing of the past.

On his side, the chief of Ngleshie Amanfrom in the Ga South municipality, Nii Kwashie Gborbilor was very grateful such project has been done on his land and asked his subjects to help maintain the institution.

“This Technology school is for us so we have to do all that we can to make it develop to become one of the renowned universities such as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana and University of Cape Coast,” he said.

Nii Gborbilor appealed to the owner of the institution to consider the indigenous people during admissions so that they will also feel that the school is indeed for them.

The owner of the school, Abbeam Danso assured the chief and people of Amanfrom that they will have a special offer for them when admitting students, adding that his outfit is prepared to work hand in hand with them.

Mr. Danso was grateful to government for seeing the need to partner private individuals to improve the education level of the country.

He advised his people to be content with the tertiary institutions in the country and not rush to Europe to pursue education, because according to him many Ghanaians are stranded in abroad, all because they intend to further their education there.

“My school offers all the modern courses both international and local so it is economically prudent to enroll in his school than to go and study aboard where at the end of the day if you are not lucky you are not going to have your certificate,” he said.

Peacefmonline

Mrs Juliana Azumah-Mensah, a former Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, says it is difficult for women Members of Parliament to vigorously articulate issues of gender on the floor of parliament due to their limited number.

She said 30 women out of 275 Members of Parliament were extremely insignificant to put up strong argument for issues of women on the floor of male-dominated parliament and get supported.

The Former Minister said this at the national forum on women organised by the Gender and Human Rights Documentation Centre in partnership with Womankind Worldwide, UK, on Monday.

The forum sought to create the platform for all stakeholders to discuss and formulate strategies for engagement and maintaining effective relationships with women representatives in parliament.

Mrs Azumah-Mensah, the MP for Ho East, said “women MPs are under stress, frustrated because our number is too small…we would want to do a lot but we don’t have the control.”

However, she said, on some occasions they lobbied their male counterparts who are sensitive to gender matters.

She said it was regrettable that since the passage of the Domestic Violence Law in 2007 there had not been any legislative instrument to provide clear guidelines for its implementation.

She said the situation was partly responsible for the slow implementation of the Domestic Violence Law with its legislative instrument locked up at the Attorney-General’s Department, passage of the affirmative action for women and interstate succession law as well as spousal and property law.

She said women MPs faced widespread marriage break downs due to parliamentary committee work pressure which might not be reported, adding in some cases few women attempted to bring along their husbands but it failed.

The MP called for closure and regular collaboration between women’s groups and women MPs to map up strategies for speedy and effective implementation of laws affecting women leadership.

Ms Hamida Harrison, Convener for Women Manifesto and Mrs Elizerbeith Akpalu, Gender Consultant, called on political parties to be democratic enough by making the processes for electing leaders transparent and work towards eliminating corruption associated with such elections.

They said in spite of years of hard work to get women participate in political leadership, research had revealed a downward trend of women participating in political leadership positions.

Participants resolved to reverse the trend by building strong linkages, networks and alliances with individuals and relevant organisations, particularly Gender Communication Network to track and report critical gender issues at every stage of advocacy.

GNA

Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament is defending the appointment of young people to political office despite growing concerns that they lack the experience for public life.

Dominic Nitiwul who at 25 years in 2002, was considered the youngest MP said the most important quality in a young person is his ability to learn quickly and exercise discretion.

His comments on Multi TV’s PM Express follows the sacking of a 32-year old deputy minister of communications Victoria Hammah.

Victoria Hammah was caught on tape saying she will stay in politics until she has made $1m. She also criticised another deputy minister, calling her “senseless, ugly, loud and egoistic”

Her sacking has brought to the fore the importance of experience over youth in political appointments.

But Dominic Nitiwul said a young public office holder can also be experinced noting “there are young people who have experience enough despite their age to occupy political office”.

He suggested that the fallout from Victoria Hammah’s comments now known as ‘vikileaks’ should not be used as a basis to question the appropriateness of appointing young people to public office.

Citing himself as an example, the youngest ever leader in Parliament said despite his youth, he has discharged himself well in his 11 years experience in politics.

He also cited Haruna Iddrisu, Minister for Trade and Industry and Isaac Kwame Asiamah, MP for Atwima Mponua as having handled political office with responsibility.

According to Nitiwul, there are old people who have been “complete disasters” and “know next to nothing” despite the benefit of age.

Nonetheless, the Member of Parliament for Bimbila says “you cannot just throw any novice there or somebody who has just completed school who knows next to nothing about politics or running a system or about managing people. if you do that its a huge mistake”.

Dominic Ntiwul believes the key is finding a young person with the right attitude.

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