Parliament to cut down on number of MPs in committees

Ghana's Minister for Parliamentary Affairs has revealed that the legislative body of government will be working to cut down the size of committees in the house as some committee are full of too many members.

Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu revealed that the leadership of parliament had observed that almost all the committees including the Standing or Select Committees have about 30 members.

The large number of committee members was, however, not reflective in the number of active members in the committee, which the Minister pegged at seven or even less in some cases.

“Why have a thirty member committee when you know that only seven are going to be active”, he quizzed. “In the new Standing Orders, we want to conform to the constitution, so we are changing the name of the select Committees to conform to what pertains in the constitution and the new select Committees will appropriately assume the name Standing Committees,” he added.

“We want to cut down the size and let every member belong to one committee,” he said, noting that some legislators are not in favour of the idea, but “if we indeed want these committees to be effective, then that is the way to go”.

He was addressing the media at the Kofi Annan ICT Center in Accra on Tuesday on the invitation of Parliamentary News Africa to answer questions on the main function of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and his vision for the ministry.