Minority urges gov’t to submit flagship programme documents to Parliament
The Minority in Parliament has renewed calls for the government to submit policy documents covering its flagship programmes to Parliament for scrutiny and oversight.
According to the caucus, none of the 11 flagship initiatives announced by the Mahama administration has been formally laid before the House for consideration, a situation they say weakens Parliament’s oversight role and limits public access to information about the programmes.
Addressing journalists in Parliament on Sunday, October 26, the Ranking Member on the Economy and Development Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, urged the government to present the relevant documents to allow proper parliamentary review and accountability.
“As of now, you have 11 programmes and initiatives that this government has launched on various platforms and Ministers have been given hundreds of millions of Ghana cedis ostensibly to go and execute them.
He argued that none of these initiatives has been backed by a publicly available programme document outlining key details such as objectives, selection criteria, results framework, or performance indicators.
“Even if not just by us Members of Parliament, you the media do you know details? Do Civil Society members know the details? Does the general public know? How does even an ordinary person know and access? So it is important that the programme documents are properly laid before parliament so that the work of oversight can start.”
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah added that his information indicates the matter has been discussed at the Cabinet level, with the President reportedly instructing ministers to submit the necessary documents.
“My intelligence suggests that it’s even been discussed at Cabinet and the President has instructed that the Ministers should bring the programme documents to parliament. So I think it’s important, we don’t have to run away from it. The programme documents need to come so that now parliament is ceased with it and then oversight can start.”
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