News:
January 26, 2020
Secretary General of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, John Azumah at a seminar in the Gambia has walked lawmakers through the achievements and activities of the fourth legislature as its life span comes to an end on the 3rd of February 2020.
According to the SG, the fourth legislature was inaugurated in February 2016 for a four year term under Article 6 and 13 of the ECOWAS revised Treaty of 1993.
Since its establishment in 2000, the Community legislature has had four legislatures with a term of four years each in the exception of the first legislature that had a five year mandate.
Mr. Azumah in his presentation to the Community lawmakers noted that with the adoption of the Supplementary Act, in 2017, the House commenced implementation of Article 7 which enable it to adopt the Community budget and exercise Parliamentary oversight functions over activities of the Community programme implementing bodies.
Again the Community Parliament was able to conduct fact finding missions and engaged in some forms of Parliamentary Diplomacy and advocacy.
In addition, the SG noted that the previous Community Parliaments carried out their assigned roles effectively, but unfortunately there was no real evaluation carried out to determine the impact they had on the Community programmes and the process of integration generally.
The last extraordinary section of the current Parliament would be held from Monday 27th to 31st January 2020, with thematic sessions, with resource persons.
Topics to be looked at would be techniques of conducting oversight in a Regional Parliament, role of the Parliament in implementing the protocols on Community levy, budget consideration and scrutiny in a Regional Parliament and assessment of the workings of a Regional Parliament.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com/Banjul