Copies of Audited account of political parties can be acquired for 250 cedis says EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has released the financial accounts of all political parties, marking a significant step towards transparency, probity and accountability.

The release of the statements of accounts is the first time in the 27-year history of the Fourth Republic that the financial records of political parties have been made available to the citizenry.

It followed a two-year advocacy campaign and a lawsuit filed by CitizenGhana Movement (CGM), publication of the statements had reversed decades-long trend of political parties breaching the 1992 Constitution, which guarantees the citizenry the right to information.

The Political Parties Act which mandated all political parties present their statements of accounts to the public on an annual basis, through the commission and despite the breach of the law, it previously failed to enforce the provisions, until now.

On February 9, 2018, the CGM secured an order from the Human Rights Court, Accra directing the EC to publish the statements of accounts of all political parties for the purpose of public information in accordance with the law.

It ordered the commission to perform the duties by September 1, 2018, however, it failed to meet the deadline ostensibly because of the constitutional procedures and subsequent transition going on at the time.

To prompt the action, CGM wrote to the new commission in December 2018 to remind the public body to comply with the court’s order and in response, the commission issued a notice demanding all political parties submit their statements of accounts to the commission by February 13, 2019.

Subsequently, on March 21, 2019, the commission published the statements of accounts of all registered political parties in accordance with the court’s order, the commission also prescribed a fee the movement was to pay for copies of the accounts and it paid the amount and expected to receive copies shortly.

Financial disclosures by political parties is a key public accountability mechanism making sources of political party funding discourage acceptance of funds from unsavoury individuals or organisations.

The movement is hopeful the release of the statements of accounts will mark the beginning of a new era of transparency, probity and accountability in the financing of political parties.

-citinewsroom.com

We'll make sure Ministers and MPs are accountable to their promises -Chair of Assurance C'ttee

The newly appointed chairman of parliament’s government assurance committee, Collins Owusu Amankwah has resolved to hold government functionaries including ministers, members of parliament, and heads of institutions accountable in the discharge of their duties.

“I think it is important to give real meaning to democracy and for me one of the fundamental principles of democratic society is for the government to be held accountable and responsible by its citizens.

We as a committee has parliamentary oversight over the executive arm of government and as the orders stipulate we have to pursue or scrutinize all promises, assurances, undertakings given by ministers from time to time” he told B&FT in an interview.

According to him, it is about accountability and reckons people must be held accountable and responsible, especially ministers.

On when he intends to execute his agenda, he indicated that he has already kept in touch with leadership and is yet to meet members to see how best they can proceed together.

He also maintained that the committee’s power in terms of the scope of operations is not limited to the floor or plenary but outside parliament.

“All those promises been made by ministers, it does not matter the platform, once we are able to track the time you made those promises, it is our duty to scrutinise and also to ask you how far you have gone with those promises”.

Parliament has reconstituted the leadership of its committees, Mahama Ayariga, Joseph Yieleh-Chireh, Fiifi Kwetey, all Minority members, are some of the big names who have lost their positions in the latest change.

Mr.Owusu Amankwah replaced Manso-Adubia MP, Yaw Frimpong Addo, who takes over as chairman of the Environment, Science and Technology Committee which was chaired by the late MP, Emmanuel Agyarko and Former Deputy Agriculture Minister, William Quaitoo is now chairman of the Local Government Committee.

Aside from the fact that some replaced committee leaders are serving in the ECOWAS and AU Parliaments, it remains unclear the reasons behind some of the changes for the committee leadership positions.

Ghana has a unicameral Legislature composed of 275 Members of Parliament from single-member constituencies with an Executive President who appoints Ministers majority of whom by the Constitution have to come from Parliament.

Parliament operates very much on the lines of the Parliament of Westminster.

The Government, for example, cannot enter into any international agreement without the ratification of Parliament: and various such controls exist.

Source: B&FT

"Arresting the dollar" and "Dumsor" - Should we take promises of politicians with a pinch of salt?

The Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu has assured Ghanaians that the country will not return to the dark days of dumsor under the watch of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

According to him, the recent challenges in the power sector are primarily due to technical issues.

Delivering a statement in Parliament on Friday, the Energy Minister said, the current challenge has nothing to do with financing.

“The Ministry of Energy is currently working with the Volta River Authority to come out with the best way of repowering the T3 Plant. We shall therefore revert to you on this issue at the appropriate time. On this issue, let me say that events that led to previous governments experiencing prolonged outage of power, popularly known as Dumsor will never ever be witnessed in this country,” he said.

Power to be normalized in about five days – Amewu

Parts of Ghana experienced outages twice this week.

The problem affected areas including Madina, Koforidua, Achimota, Kasoa, North Kaneshie, Cape Coast, parts of Takoradi and other parts of the country.

While taking a tour of the affected power infrastructure that led to the recent outages, Mr. Amewu said he hoped that the challenges will be rectified within the next five days.

“Definitely because of the construction work that is going on [at Pokuase] there is a need for them [companies in the power distribution chain] to halt the transmission of power for this period. So these are some of the problems they are facing. You can see the progress of work and my expectation is that it is going to be completed within about five days. But we’ve put in measures to minimize the impact. This is one of the major causes of interruptions. The problem has been caused by technical issues,” Amewu assured.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), Jonathan Amoako-Baah also assured that measures have been put in place to ensure consistent power supply within the next few days.

“There is enough stock for the generation stations to provide the electricity we need in Ghana. We are having these challenges and difficulties because of the project at Pokuase. There is no dumsor. When we finish this work, we are going to go back to the reliability of supply that we have been used to in the past. So Ghanaians I want you to be rest assured that in a few days when this work is completed we are going to go back to the status quo,” Mr. Amoako-Baah added.

Source: Citinewsroom