News:
May 31, 2018
The revised Standing Orders of Parliament which is currently at the editing stages will make provisions for the Petitions Committee of Parliament, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has disclosed.
The Petitions Committee of Parliament when established is expected to focus on specific issues that citizens of Ghana will petition Parliament about for prompt attention.
Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu who is Member of Parliament for Suame and Majority leader disclosed this at a leadership meeting that brought together, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu, the Chairmen, Vice Chairmen and Ranking Members of the various parliamentary committees on strengthening parliamentary oversight over the executive.
He expressed displeasure about the situation where members of the public often times petitions Parliament but the House is unable to address issues raised due to lack of a dedicated body to deal with such concerns.
“When a petition is presented to the house, often times the Speaker will ask Majority Leader please can you go and meet the demonstrators or the petitioners, and that’s about the end of it.
Nothing happens after that, and yet the people that we represent are the people who come to us that we are not happy with A, B or C, how do you resolve that for us but we take them, and we are not able to do anything about it. We must have a properly defined structure to deal with this,” he said.
The Petitions Committee will therefore come in handy to close that gap.
By Christian Kpesese/ ghanamps.com