News:
April 24, 2019
Member of Parliament for Anlo and one of Ghana’s representative to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Clement Kofi Humado, is advocating for the revisiting of the original idea of electing lawmakers for the community legislature.
According to the Anlo lawmaker, “you are likely to lose your seat if you concentrate too much on the community Parliamentary work”.
“Doing effective work, it will take your own time off the constituency and in your own Parliament back home, this has become more serious because previously ECOWAS Parliament was more of deliberative work where you meet twice a year and discuss some activities protocols and treaties signed by ECOWAS commission”.
Mr. Clement Kofi Humado in an interview noted that since December 2016, the Authorities of Heads of States, met and felt that the community legislature should do more than they are doing, so they added more oversight responsibilities.
He said now, annual budget work programme of the Commission is brought to Parliament for scrutiny and it takes a lot of time, after that you need to go to various countries to see how institutions are operating.
For example, West African Health Organization have allocated some funds for activities in Burkina Faso, a team needs to fly there and go to the areas to ensure work is being carried out, and to verify whether, funds taken is being spent wisely and efficiently.
Also, “we have so many institutions under the ECOWAS Commission, the community Parliament appoints committees to visit. This can take a minimum of a week and maximum two weeks. Subtract that from your home country national Parliamentary work is a lot of work”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com