Speaker confirms FM Station for Parliament
The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey on Wednesday confirmed that Parliament would have a dedicated FM radio station to broadcast live proceedings of the House before the end of this session of Parliament.
When established, the public will have the opportunity to monitor what goes on in the House as against the current notion that Members of Parliament (MP's)do not do much work.
Mr Ala Adjetey said this when he chaired the 10th, in a series of Public Fora since 1994. The Forum is an interactive session between Parliament and the public at, which the public ventilate issues on how the House has performed in the past year.
"When the FM Station is established the public will have the opportunity to monitor what goes on in the House, ... and that, there can be no better way of directly engaging the public than to broadcast live," he added.
The Forum, part of the Parliamentary Week is under the theme: Parliamentary Democracy - Key to Sustainable Development. Mr Ala Adjetey said through the Forum, "We would be able to correct wrong perceptions about Parliament."
He debunked the notion that Parliament was an institution where matters which impinge on the lives of the people were dealt with in partisan, sterile and acrimonious debates that culminated in churning out laws which were nothing but burdensome impositions on the people.
"Parliament is an institution set up for the people by the people ....and using the appropriate route, any member of the public can access the officers and offices in Parliament, or bring issues up for consideration by the House," the Speaker said.
He said, "within our constitutional set up in this country, Parliament is the institution that represents the voices of the people in the governance process".
Mr Ala Adjetey said 35 Bills were presented to the House out of which 30 were passed. One Bill was withdrawn and the remaining four were still with the relevant committees to be dealt with in the current Session. The House approved a total of 24 loans and financial agreements, while it received 138 reports covering various activities of the House. Mr Ala Adjetey said 14 Legislative and Constitutional Instruments were laid before the House and came into force after the expiration of 20 sitting days of Parliament in accordance with the Constitution. He complained about the constraints facing Parliament, which, was constantly making MP's work most burdensome; but added that the Parliamentary Select Board has taken action to offer some short term relief.
"Parliamentary committees," he noted for instance, " still do not have meeting rooms, and many committees regularly and routinely resort to meeting in the lobbies to discuss critical issues of national importance.
"It is our hope that these constraints will be addressed in the very near future," he said.
Mr Ala Adjetey rejected claims that the nation was spending too much on its MP's when he answered a question that government's 20,000 dollar loan to MP's was too much.
Mr Ala Adjetey said, "Ghanaian MP's and Ghanaian workers generally are paid starvation wages and the worst paid, not only in Africa but in the whole world."
He noted that the 20,000 dollars is a lot of money but not so much in terms of the cost of vehicles on the market in the country. The Speaker said there was a comprehensive plan to retrieve the monies from the MP's at the end of their term in Parliament.
"If we are not able to retrieve it, their end-of service-benefits would be used to off-set the balance."
He said, "constitutional democracy is an expensive art, and we should be ready to pay for it.
"If we are not able to equip our Parliamentarians and the system comes to a halt, we should be ready to head towards the opposite of democracy, which is arbitrariness and capricious use of power by a few."
He said a lot of talk has gone on the issue, "but when you look around carefully, it's nothing at all. Its nothing when you compare it to other jurisdictions where the monies to MP's to buy cars are free."
He said in Kenya MP's receive 50,000 dollars.
A questioner who said the government should ensure that peace returned to the Dagbon area to enable elections to be held there, also noted, "the people in the area and Ghanaians would not accept the entire results if the people in the area were disenfranchised in the December Parliamentary and Presidential elections."
Mr Ala Adjetey said it was government's wish that peace would return to the area to enable all the people to take active part in the voting.
"If conditions continue to improve the way it is going, we hope that things would have normalized. Indeed it is the intention of Parliament that all the people in Ghana take part in the forthcoming election in December."
