News:
Member Ad Hoc Committee ECOWAS Parliament
October 5, 2022
A member of the Ad Hoc Committee that prepared the Community Parliament’s budget for next year 2023, Senator Edwin Melvin Snowe Jr. has revealed that the budget has a zero per cent increase. According to him before the passage of their budget the Commission send a budget celling referred to as a budget circular; this year’s own is twenty-two million UA as they have been directed by the Commission to re-direct their programme as they cannot increase it.
“So what we have done is to condense some of our programmes. For example, where we had programme for 16 localized meeting, we have cut it down to four but all of the MPs would still be going , except that where staffs would have to be moved to different location, they would make one trip; we have cut that down”, he said in an interview with Ghanamps.com
The meeting on direct elections, they have cut down on activities also, some of the things like procurement of vehicles they do not need additional vehicles for next year, “we do not have to do structure works like we did last year, we had money in the budget for last year. We have made those adjustments to accommodate our programme apart from Nigeria, Liberia and Serra Leone, we have Parliamentary elections in Benin, Togo Guinea Bissau so there are six elections next year; three in presidential and three parliamentary”.
Chairman of the Committee on Political Affairs, Peace, Security and Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) noted that, they have accommodated those elections in their budget, they have accommodated all the oversight missions in their budget, as a matter of fact that is why beginning of next week after this session MPs would be making simultaneous trips in the region on fact finding missions.
“So, all of our programmes have been covered, we are concerned about the prevailing situation in the region; three of our member states are on sanction on military regime that also affect revenue the intake of the community levy”. So most of their activities have been affected, they were able to make the necessary adjustment in the budget so that we would be able to continue their work and the visibility of the parliament.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com