News:
November 20, 2020
Member of Parliament for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh has said as a matter of policy advice, a future National Democratic Congress (NDC) government would not maintain the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.
According to him as at the time Africa Union (AU) carried out the Africa Peer Review Mechanism at one point, they came out that, existence of MOPA means the Executive arm of government was exerting its authority over Parliament.
“But, Parliament is supposed to be independent; they advice us not to create it, I still think that for the position there should be a Minister, but not to be a Majority Leader and a Minister as he is now the one who lays papers on behalf of Ministers, and also create an impression that the Ministry plays an oversight of Parliament”.
The Former Local Government and Rural Development Minister, in an interview at a program organised by MOPA for religious bodies and National Media Commission on the theme, “Towards elections in December 2020: The perspective of the National Media Commission and Religious Leader”, praised the Ministry for doing extremely well by engaging various stakeholders in a national dialogue.
He further added that issues like moneytisation of Ghana’s politics had been discussed and the fact that, Parliament is losing experience lawmakers, and in addition bring security agencies and religious leaders together to talk is a lot of achievement.
However, he pointed out that, ideally it was not the responsibility of MOPA to be engaged in all these activities, rather the Ministry of Information, but it has been reduced to government propaganda wing.
And MOPA should have been complementing the Information Ministry and not the other way round, he said.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com