‘Parliament committed to passing pending bills’ – Osei-Owusu

Parliament has expressed its strongest commitment towards passing all bills brought before it by the Executive for consideration.

The House which has legislative functions has been criticized by a section of the populace including civil society organizations over what has been described as the delay in passing crucial bills such as the Right to Information Bill (RTI), the Intestate Succession Bill and the Property Rights of Spouses Bill among others.

Even though these bills, among others, have been on Parliament’s drawing board for years, the seventh Parliament is yet to be called into action to consider them.

First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu in a recent interview, emphasised the fact that all bills are given equal treatment.

The Bekwai legislator popularly known as Joe Wise echoed the sentiments of the House when he stated that: “the House is ready for business anytime government makes indications in that regard. If it is the desire of the President and the executive for these three bills(right to information, interstate succession and property rights of spouses bills) to be passed before the year ends, Ghanaians should rest assured that MPs will be up to the task.”

Touching on misconceptions that the RTI Bill was not in the interest of politicians hence the delay, Mr Osei-Owusu noted that the bill, when passed will not make any difference in the processes of attaining information from government.

“It’s not different from any other bill. As we speak now it’s not before the House yet . . . As far as I’m concerned, it’s like any other bill. For me, if you ask me, the more critical bills that are still pending are the Property Rights of spouses and the Interstate Succession Bills. These are the things that affect the everyday people,” he stressed.

According to him, “the right to information is guaranteed in the constitution. So that’s where the power is. What the constitution said was that parliament shall by law determine the limits. What that bill is bringing is the limits so when it has not come, it is when at this point that there are no limits that you have the widest power to ask for any information.”

Delving into the last minute setback the bill suffered during the sixth Parliament after so much work had gone into it, Mr Osei-Owusu noted that they could not have ample time to complete the processes before Parliament went on recess in 2016.

“We worked very hard to try and pass it before the end of the last parliament, unfortunately, we couldn’t. The reason is that when we finished working on it at that time, the Honourable second deputy speaker was the chairman of the Constitutional and legal committee and I was his Ranking member. We worked with all the coalition and all the interest groups. We proposed a fifty-page amendment to the bill. That should tell you that if we’re going to go through it and amend them, it was going to take forever. There was no way we could do all that so a proposal was tabled the Minister agreed that we should withdraw the bill, incorporate all the amendments and represent it. Even that it was tedious but we withdrew it and brought it back”.

According to him, when the committee worked on it and brought its report with the few amendments, the House could not work on it because of general elections.

“The house went into election mood and nobody was going to stay here and do amendments. After all, we’re on vacation,” he explained.

He, however, reiterated the commitment of the House to pass the RTI and the two other important bills anytime they are tabled.