MPs urged to generate parliamentary business
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The issue of sector ministers coming to the House to answer questions posed by MPs had been raised by some MPs and concerned members of the society on a number of occasions.
it seemed, however, that this time, it was the MPs who were not filing the questions to compel sector ministers to come to the floor of the House and answer them.
Commenting on the situation, Mr Adjaho lamented that questions were not being filed by the MPs to draw the attention of the sector ministers on the needs of their constituents and the country as a whole.
Usually, the bulk of the questions are filed by MPs from the Minority side but the Deputy Minority Leader, Mr Dominic Nitiwul, told the Daily Graphic that members from his side would not file questions until the Supreme Court gave its verdict on the ongoing election petition.
“We are convinced that the government is not prepared and ready to do business”, he said, adding “that had been made clear through the inability of the various sectors to submit bills and their programmes to the House for consideration”.
He explained that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning was expected to lay a number of bills to reform the country’s tax system before the House for consideration as contained in the 2013 budget but that had not been done.
Mr Nitiwul wondered how the government would be able to achieve its targets since that would depend on the approval of the bills that the ministry was expected to present to the House for consideration.
Quoting aspects of Article 108 of the Constitution, Mr Nitiwul said Parliament on its own could not do much, if the government folded its arms and failed to present bills and policies and programmes to the House.
“We want the business now. We will not want to be stampeded just two days when the House is scheduled to rise so that we can exercise our oversight responsibility satisfactorily”, he said.
He hinted that the House was expected to rise on July 19, 2013, to pave way for the refurbishment of the chamber and wondered whether all the government businesses could be transacted by the House before it adjourned sine die.
By Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah