Ghana’s Parliament is ‘broke’, No funds to operate – Speaker reveals
Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Bagbin, has revealed that the legislative arm of Government is starved of funds to execute it’s legislative functions.
According to him, the Legislative house is undergoing dire financial consequence and may soon shut down if things remain the same in the next two months.
So far, he said he has seized approving financial commitments of the house due to the constraints.
RT Hon Bagbin disclosed this at the Thursday May 26, proceeding in the House as part of his official communication to Members.
He thus called out the Minister for Finance for starving the House of funds.
“It is not because I like declining your requests. It is because we don’t have the wherewithal to fund those operations.”
Mr. Bagbin also suggested that Parliament was deserving of more respect than it currently got.
“The Ministry of Finance should not treat Parliament like a ministry or NGO,” he said.
“This is an arm of government. We are not part of the MMDAs. We have even been written to, to reduce our budget in some cases by 50 percent,” he complained.
He further stressed that he would take responsibility for these financial constraints.
“If they want Parliament to run aground, they should let us know. The Speaker is not ready and prepared to be blamed for the inability to get Parliament going on just because we are not getting the necessary.
Source: expressnewsghana.com