Month: December 2017

Member of Parliament (MP) for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh has attributed absence of most MPs on the floor of the House during consideration stage of Bills to lack of orientation on their core duties when new MPs come to the House.

He noted that, rather new MPs are looking at committees they can serve on, “this is one of the problems we face,much time is not allotted or dedicated to address MPs on their primary duty”.

He said their core duty is law making, but at the start of every new Parliament MPs are looking for juicy committees to serve on.

Mr Yieleh Chireh who was speaking in an interview said he has spoken to the management of Parliament several times to no avail for MPs to go through the law making process.

Investigations and checks done by ghanamps.com can reveal that during consideration stage of Bills, only about 10 percent of MPs are found on the floor of the House, and the Wa West legislator is among the few MPs who stay on the floor during this time.

Again, “MPs cannot just walk out just like that when it gets to consideration stages of Bills, in fact in the case of recent Bills passed, Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Development Authority Bills it happened”.

According to the Wa West lawmaker, the Majority Whips ensure their members were around and further called for rules to be strengthened to ensure MPs perform their primary duties.

He further added, MPs should ensure that they work hard for Ghanaians to know they “craft” good laws and lamented over the conduct of some Ministers in the seventh Parliament who bring Bills but do not stay in the House.

Again an “MP can propose amendment to a Bill which can change the policy implication, that is why we need the Ministers in the House”, and commended Attorney General, Gloria Akufo for always being around and consulting on the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill.

However he was quick to add that some MPs on the Minority side who are not lawyers have started showing interest in the crafting of Bills from the beginning to the end.

“I feel ashamed when they say this law was badly drafted and passed by MPs and people insult us for allowing some laws to pass, we should make new members interested in the law making process”, he said.

He further said, you do not need to be a lawyer to take part in the law making process, we have different people with different background,“for instance if you are making law for the internet, those in that industry use some term that others might think their grammar is not good but that is the language use in their industry”.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Minority leader and Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu has served the strongest indication to President Akufo-Addo’s Ministers that the Minority will not encourage or accommodate Deputy Ministers moving budget motion on the floor.

“Mr. Speaker, Minister must be responsive to this House, they should appear to justify policy wise the amount of money from which they are asking Parliament to give approval of” he said money.

According to the Tamale South legislator, he is just serving notice, unless there is anything compelling since we are human, we will not accommodate or tolerate Ministers sending their Deputies to come for monies which they will spend throughout the year, “we will not we will not”.

They should take the House seriously, I know sometimes when we say they do not take the House serious they get offended, he lamented.

He noted that any Minister who is not ready to move motion for his or her budget should be jumped and the opportunity given to other Ministers, “budget is the most important obligation for all Ministers”.

“We have all been there before, you cannot have an excuse that someone should come and move a motion for you, it is a principal policy issue what are you doing as a Minister to contribute to the President’s vision or success”?

Mr. Iddrisu said Ministers must state policy direction and not only say just that “I move that this amount of money be approved for me then you walk away”.

By Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Ranking member on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Inusah Fuseini has said the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Department is working on the passed Office of Special Prosecutors Bill to ensure it mirrors the intention of Parliament.

He further noted that Attorney General’s Department is taking all the discussion on the Bill captured in the Hansard to its office and looking at the final product against the discussion on the floor.

Again there are movement of provisions and realignment of provisions captured on the floor and reconciling all the amendment that happened with the Bill that was produced to ensure that nothing has been smuggled in and nothing taken out, he said in an interview.

According to the Tamale Central lawmaker, the work being done is quite laborious and the last time he checked, he was told the Bill will get to the President for his assent by the close of this week.

The Special Prosecutor Bill at the committee level suffered more than 100 amendments; on the floor of the House it suffered further amendments, he lamented.

He noted that, if Ghana has a technology that will capture amendments made to Bills, it will ensure that the work is done faster.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament (MP) for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh has said rushed Bills in the third meeting for the first session of the seventh Parliament are likely to have problems at the courts.

According to the Wa West legislator, to make good laws procedures must be followed properly and sufficient time for the laws to be crafted properly.

In an interview with ghanamps.com, he noted that when we rush Bills and passed them into laws, like we have seen in this third meeting, when it gets to the courts there will be problems, he lamented.

Mr. Joseph Yieleh Chireh pointed out that managing public time in biggest problem in the Nation, obviously we rushed in passing laws.

“I cannot predict what is going to happened for instance Office of the Special prosecutor Bill we have to sit late, whiles in the morning the House was not doing anything, we need to fresh in our minds when working on this laws and not when we are tired”.

Againthe Development Authority Bills, Northern Costal and Middle belt were similarly rushed.“When people are tired things are not done carefully, my advice to government is legislative programmes should be plan early for an ample time to consider principles of Bills”.

He added that a change in a single word, when not done properly will change the meaning of a whole Bill.

He further pointed out that at the consideration stage of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, Amendments were moved haphazardly and at the second consideration stage, “we did not know which one we were doing, there are rules about consideration stage”.

Mr. Speaker during amendment of Bills at the consideration stage will say, delete and relocate this clause, if there are new clause leave them to the draft persons. “But most of the time wonder if the draft persons are in the House considering how late we close from the chamber at consideration stage of Bills”, he said.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Wa West Joseph Yieleh Chireh has said he feels vindicated when he told his colleagues in the House, the President would not be able to sign into law early the rushed passed Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill.

Investigation and checks done by Ghanamps.com indicates that the passed Bill is yet to be forwarded to the Presidency for the President Nana Akufo-Addo to append his signature.

Chairman of the Constitutional Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee, Ben Abdala, indicated that the President is in a hurry to append his signature to the pass Bill into law.

According to the Wa West legislator whiles working on the passed Special Prosecutor Bill, motions were being moved and relocated any how most of the time confused everyone, whiles draft person were directed to work on clauses.

He advocated for a technology that will help parliament when considering a Bill and amendment are made, the following morning those amendments will be presented to the House.

And noted that the manual way currently makes the work tedious as draft persons and the clerks had to do a lot of work hence delaying Bills getting to the Presidency to be signed into law.

Mr. Joseph Yieleh Chireh noted that because the Majority leadership did not want the President to look bad MPs were made to stay late into the night, where MPs were tired and could not make meaningful input to the Bill.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei Owusu has urged members of the Parliamentary press corps not to allow the misconduct of an individual Member of Parliament (MP) to run down Parliament as an institution.

He further called for individual MPs who misconduct themselves to be isolated and expose them. He further noted that elsewhere in other democracies, the political class is very keen to protect its image.

According to the first Deputy Speaker, if you are a member of this group and you are mentioned for misconduct they will isolate you.

When they conduct their own investigation and find out that the allegations are true they will quickly isolate you, “let you not bring our dirt muddy the rest of us”, he said.

Again Parliament must be promoted for you to be held in high esteem, for Journalists to be seen as relevant in your work but if “I misconduct myself join in the crusade to isolate me”.

My cancerous behavior should not spread in the organization, my misconduct should not be used to run down the institution because you will also go down with it, he stated.

If you make up your mind as journalists who cover parliament to make it insignificant, at the end of the ray it will reflect on you yourselves and people will say these are the people who work in that “useless” institution.

Mr. Joseph Osei Owusu urged members of the press corps to specialize and sort to know ifthere are a group of Journalists in Parliament who are trucking the financial agreement that has come to the House?

“Everybody is complaining that we are paying too much interest on loans as stated in the budget again if we pay all the interest we will not be able to pay salaries. How has these loans affected the economy, did we get value for money on the money we borrowed this should attract your attention as Journalist”, he said.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has said its time as a Nation to have a dialogue on how Members of Parliament can be facilitated to touch base with their constituent.

He further revealed that in Zimbabwe, a helicopter is made available for MPs to be able to touch base with their constituents.

According to the Majority leader, in that case, no MP would have any excuse for not going to his or her constituency with the excuse that it is far away and pointed out that the time has come for the Nation to have a National dialogue on this issue.

He made this remark at an open forum organised by Parliament and Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), on the theme: “strengthening openness, transparency and accountability: Parliament of Ghana’s commitments”.

And called for a clear cut procedure where Ghanaians can file their petition and grievances and lamented over Parliaments own grievance procedure being circuitous such that, one does not know where to start from and end.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Chairman of the Privileges committee and first Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu has revealed that a lot of Journalists in Parliament House would have been hauled before the privileges committee if Parliament had been strict on its rules.

When discussions are held at close sitting, anybody who reports anything, the rules are clear, if you report anything whether a member or an outsider you are in contempt.

And yet you find a way to be getting information from close sitting, “you even go out to say from your hint from within those are dangerous you will find yourself in trouble with the parliamentary legal regime”, he said.

According to the first Deputy Speaker, the reportage of a Journalist should have an element of achieving a National interest, “how are you in your reportage helping Parliament to focus on its core mandate”?

He further noted that Journalists should do their research before conducting interviews and interrogate issues they conduct interview around and not just take what they are told by MPs.

Sometimes I am sick to the bone when a person conducting the interview is allowing a person to lie freely, “if you are not knowledgeable, how do you point the untruth in the speech of the person you are interviewing? I encourage you to be more investigative prepare very well before you conduct an interview”, he advised.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com