{"id":10204,"date":"2023-02-02T17:06:45","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T17:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expressnewsghana.com\/?p=10204"},"modified":"2023-02-03T06:15:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T06:15:14","slug":"parliament-cant-absolve-itself-from-ghanas-economic-woes-dr-rasheed-draman-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expressnewsghana.com\/?p=10204","title":{"rendered":"Parliament can\u2019t absolve itself from Ghana\u2019s Economic Woes- Dr Rasheed Draman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Executive Director of Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs, Dr. Rasheed Draman has said, Ghana\u2019s legislative House, Parliament could not absolve itself from the current economic challenging facing the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to him, if parliamentarians have played their oversight role effectively, some of the financial agreements and loans that pushed the country to its current debt portfolio could have been avoided.<\/p>\n

Dr. Draman made the comments in his preliminary assessment of the two years of the 8Th Parliament of Ghana.<\/p>\n

Parliament is, widely known as one of the central institutions of the state, alongside the Executive and Judiciary.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, parliament oversees and scrutinizes executive activities, and represents all citizens, thereby giving voice to all.<\/p>\n

The primary functions of Parliament are: to pass laws for the good governance of Ghana and to provide by giving legislative sanctions, taxation, and acquisition of loans, the means of carrying out the work of Government.<\/p>\n

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Dr. Rasheed Draman, Executive Director,ACEPA<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to that parliament also scrutinize Government policy and administration through the pre-legislative scrutiny of bills referred to the Parliamentary committees, scrutiny of the various objects of expenditure and the sums to be spent on each, assuring transparency and accountability in the application of public funds.<\/p>\n

However, speaking to EXPRESSNEWSGHANA<\/em><\/strong> in an interview last Tuesday in Accra, Dr. Draman said parliament had failed part of its oversight responsibility of the government\u2019s excessive borrowing and expenditure which had increased the debt stock beyond 100 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.<\/p>\n

He noted that Parliament\u2019s role in defending the public\u2019s interest had deteriorated over the years, but recent events where most of the government budgetary allocation was rejected is an indication that the 8th<\/sup> parliament had somehow performed better in saving the public purse.<\/p>\n

With the current parliament of 137 MPs each of the political divide of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) with one Independent, the ACEPA Executive Director believed parliament could do much better to hold the executive to strict expenditure.<\/p>\n

In a general assessment of the performance of the 8th<\/sup> Parliament, which is being described as \u201ca Hung Parliament\u201d Dr. Draman said there is a mixture of scorecards of the current parliament with its attendance challenges and success.<\/p>\n

The successful blockage of some budgetary allocation for the Cathedral in the 2023 budget, among others, he noted has exonerated Parliament from being a clearing house for the executive without proper scrutiny of government policies.<\/p>\n