Parliamentary Resource Centre worried over ill-structured submissions
Mr Pius Acolatse, Public Relations Officer of the Parliamentary Resource Centre (PRC), Sekondi-Takoradi, has expressed worry over how written submissions made by the public to the House always did not conform to due process.
He observed that the House has procedures, standards and guidelines for addressing problems and issues from the public, and that failure to follow them always made it difficult for such grievances to be addressed.
Mr. Acolatse told the GNA in an interview in Sekondi stated that ‘management of the Centre has observed that some of the written submissions from the public generally entitled ‘MEMORANDUM’ that are addressed to Parliament, do consistently bear a number of presentation flaws’.
He explained that the Resource Centre was seen as a tool for drawing Ghana’s Parliamentary institution closer to the citizenry in order to obtain institutionally enriching outcomes.
‘A strategic objective of the Centre is also to facilitate public input into parliamentary business by extending the reach of Parliament to regions, districts and constituencies,’ he added.
He said the submissions presented are usually in response to express requests from Parliament, Parliamentary bodies or agencies soliciting for public concerns and perspectives on a publicized legislative proposal or some other policy-making document.
Mr Acolatse said the common presentation flaws observed in the responses from the public included poor structuring and wording disjointed details, adding, ‘Personnel have to spend precious time and effort in filtering out the essential issues for discussion, a situation which deserves a cure’.
He therefore called on the public to be meticulous and provide relevant information which comprise ‘Addressee’s Details: the Contact details of the officer, body or agency of Parliament to receive the Submission’.
He said the information must be carefully reproduced to enable the Submission get to its intended destination with minimal delay.
He said the information should also include the Identity of the Originator of the Submission: official name and full contact details including postal and email addresses, telephone number(s), Status of the Originator of the Submission: either a non-governmental organization, a business entity, private individual among others.
According to the PRO, the Subject Reference of the Bill or of other parliamentary documents seeking public input should consider the date of Submission, justification for the submission in a clear and easy to digest English.
‘It should be devoid of grammatical mistakes, unnecessary repetition and jargon. The language of the Submission should communicate courtesy to the intended recipient, he stated.
‘Indeed it is necessary to remind the public that while the Originator of the Submission may have a passion for the subject, she or he should avoid sounding harsh or disrespectful if she or he expects the Submission to be favourably received’, Mr. Acolatse added.
He mentioned that the statement of concerns should be based on authoritative, comprehensive and accurate sources of information and where the concerns are multiple; they may be separated by bullet points to ensure easy identification.
Mr Acolatse asked that any recommendations in the Submission be numbered off with Roman numerals in order for them to stand out.
The Parliamentary Resource PRO added that in this era of information overload, successful communication depended heavily on good information management and that creating a structure to simplify the communication process between the public and their representatives in Ghana’s Parliament was imperative.
GNA
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