Let Parliament Participate in Drafting of Budgets - Badgin (Spread)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
THE Minority Leader in Parliament, Mr Alban Bagbin, has noted that the current process of drawing budgets under the 1992 Constitution does not allow Parliament to play any effective role.
Mr Bagbin, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli West, also stated that the date of presentation of the budget and the duration of debates, which lasted for about a month, was not long enough to allow any serious work on such an important national document.
He has, therefore, called for a constitutional amendment to mandate Parliament to participate more effectively in the drafting stage and the power to amend the budget when presented to Parliament. He also recommended an extension of the period of deliberation on the statement to three months.
Mr Bagbin said one of the critical factors affecting Parliament’s role in the budgetary process was the fact that the House played no significant role in the drafting of the budget but expected to deliberate and approve it after its presentation.
Mr Bagbin said currently Parliament’s participation in the budget process started with a statement presented by the Minister of Finance under the instruction of the President and then a motion moved in Parliament on an appointment day for deliberation.
Addressing participants at a recent workshop for media practitioners on the budgetary process in Accra, the Minority Leader explained that although stakeholders were allowed to send inputs, the drafting of the budget was vested solely in the hands of the Executive.
He said, however, that the House played a critical role within its mandate and resources and mentioned its oversight role over the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) through monitoring and evaluation and field visits to communities, which, he said, helped to monitor implementation and added that “these need to be sustained”.
Speaking on the topic: “The Role of Parliament in the Budgetary Process”, Mr Bagbin said there was the need for a budget office to be established to offer requisite analysis and alternatives on budget statement to achieve national objectives, adding that “this requires the right legislative backing”.
Explaining what a budget was, he said budgets helped in forecasting revenue and project expenditure for year based on identified priorities, adding that it was a powerful tool that guided development in any nation.
He mentioned the various stages in the budgetary processes as the drafting stage, the legislative stage, the implementation stage and the auditing stage.
He said as representatives of the people, parliamentarians had the responsibility to ensure that budgets matched the needs of the people and said that was why it was important for the House to enforce the “Power of the Purse” as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution.
He said it was unfortunate for some people to perceive the Minority as being there to only oppose anything that came from the Majority, adding that “we agree on about 95 per cent of the issues raised in the House and disagree on about five per cent”.
He lamented that lack of knowledge of the work of Parliament on the part of some members of the public, from comments they sometimes made about some MPs with opposing views, could be disheartening sometimes and said “some of us feel bad when we hear such comments from people”.
He pointed out that the Minority in Parliament was there to protect the interest of the ordinary people.
The Minority Leader called for support from all Ghanaians to enable MPs to perform better and also touched on a complementary increase in Parliament’s budget to obtain the needed resources, which included engaging staff with requisite expertise on issues to support them.
He pointed out that these changes would help Parliament as an institution to achieve its own objective as stated in Parliament’s Enhanced Strategic Plan and, therefore, “strengthen Parliament’s significance in budget-making, approval and oversight”.
Mr Bagbin, however, stated that in spite of these shortcomings, there were some improvement in the budgetary processes over the years and mentioned access to budget information, improvement in committee oversight role and also the autonomy of the Auditor General (AG), which, he said, was assured, and a stronger relationship built with Parliament.
He expressed appreciation that Ghana’s Parliament within its current mandate and with the resources available to it was doing its best to play an effective role in the budgetary process.