Speaker of Parliament, Rtd Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has issued a terse warning to the political class that he will not yield to pressure from any quarter to allow the House of Parliament to be turned into a rubber stamp or an obstructer.
The House, he said, cannot discharge any one of its core mandates of deliberative, legislative, financial control, oversight, and representational by being obstructionist or a rubber stamp.
Addressing the House on Friday after it reconvened for business for the first time, the Speaker indicated that the outcome of the 2020 general elections demands members to rededicate themselves to the true and core mandate and mission of Parliament.
According to him, there appears to be some confusion and misunderstanding as to what the appropriate role of Parliament is in Ghana’s constitutional system.
Much of this, he said, is a result of the two-party structure and composition of the House within the context of the winner-takes-all politics.
He said, “Because of this, whenever Parliament is dominated by the same party that holds the Presidency and forms the Government, the common perception and expectation is that Parliament will automatically support the Government’s agenda, without regard to its merits.”
“We have come to assume that Government is entitled to have its way in Parliament. And because this has been the Ghanaian public’s perception of how Parliament has conducted itself under various Administrations in the Fourth Republic, this current development of a House in which neither Party has a secure or dominating Majority, in other words, no Majority Party and no Minority Party, and of a Speaker who is not beholden to or endorsed by the President, is causing many of our citizens both in and out of Government, including in this House, a great deal of consternation.”
“To them, if Government is not guaranteed its way in a Parliament, then such a Parliament can only be obstructionist.”
This concern, Speaker Alban Bagbin said, is needless as it is based on incorrect view of what Parliament’s role is and what its role has been in the Fourth Republic.
According to him, regardless of which party has the upper hand in the House, it would be wrong to see Parliament’s role as either obstructing or rubberstamping government’s agenda.
He averred that Parliament’s role is to check-and-balance the executive, not to obstruct or rubberstamp the Executive’s agenda.
“Parliament does its job, as it must, when it questions, investigates, reviews, and scrutinizes the Executive, its bills, its nominations, and its proposed agreements, and then proceeds to approve, to amend, or to reject them, as the case may be,” he said.
Mr. Bagbin indicated that as an MP who comes to the Speakership with the longest record of previous service he can recount instances of Parliament playing precisely this role and helping to improve the quality of the nation’s governance.
He cited examples including the law on Causing Financial Loss to the State, and how Parliament amended and added the word willfully when it came to the floor of the House.
The House, he said, also had cause to refuse to consider and to approve the nomination of a Court of Appeal Judge to be appointed as Justice of the Supreme Court and many others.
He assured that as long as the 8th Parliament follows these examples in good faith and with transparent justification, such cases cannot be called rubber-stamping or obstructionist.