The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has blamed the inequitable allocation of resources for Parliament’s difficulties in properly carrying out its oversight duty over the Executive Arm of Government.
Bagbin argues that the government’s 600 million Cedis allocation falls short of effectively equipping the legislature to scrutinize the executive, which often gets allocations in the billions of Cedis.
Mr Bagbin, speaking at a Press Soiree in Ho, Volta Region, to commemorate 30 years of unbroken parliamentary democracy in Ghana, emphasized the importance of reforms to strengthen the parliamentary government in the country.
“If the Presidency in an annual budget can take, for example, 3 billion cedis and the whole arm that is to hold the president to account is given about 600 million cedis, now how can that weak body hold that mighty executive to account, how is it going to happen?”
The Speaker also stated that the difficulties in supervising the executive are increased by the government’s lack of support for the media.
He emphasized the importance of the media in overseeing all three branches of government and bemoaned the fact that in Ghana, the media is frequently considered a for-profit corporation with no regard for working conditions or accountability procedures.
“If the media which is supposed to hold the three of us accountable is not even catered for, the media is seen in Ghana as a private enterprise and nobody cares whether there are conditions of service or not.”
