Speaker recommends increase in membership of Public Accounts Committee

Speaker Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has recommended to the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of Parliament to consider increasing the number of memberships of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

He said the Parliament would also strategise to form sub-committees for the PAC and assign them the voluminous reports that were before the Committee to work on and report to the leadership of the Committee to finalise and submit to the House.

The Speaker made the recommendation on Tuesday in a statement to the House to address matters that were pertinent to the functioning of Parliament and laid at the core of what Members of Parliament did in the Chamber and by extension the House.

He intimated that the reports of the Auditor-General were very critical and crucial for the sanity of Ghana’s democracy.

“I have had the opportunity to dialogue with the Auditor-General and his team and they are ready to support us in this direction,” Mr Bagbin said.

“He (Auditor-General) says, their spirits are low because a lot of what they submit to Parliament, we haven’t attended to. We must lift that spirit by quickening our pace for consideration of those reports and submitting them to the House. I hope we are together.”

The Speaker said there was a growing trend when members of the various Committees of the House sit in Committee meetings, participate in the meeting and then, come on to the floor of Parliament to raise new objections to the Committee’s report when same was not done at the committee’s level.

“We have what we have in this House as the Bagbin’s rule, that when a member of a committee raises objection at the Committee’s level and doesn’t succeed, it doesn’t prevent the member from raising the same objection at the plenary; whether the chair or a committee member but you must first raise it at the Committee level.

“You can disagree with the decision of the committee and therefore you bring it to the plenary for the whole House to consider the reason behind your objection and agree with you or disagree with you,” he said.

“And that is what I did some years ago as Chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee; where on the floor I objected to report of my committee, and it was upheld and ruled upon by the speaker. That is what I call the Bagbin’s rule. That is permitted but if you don’t raise it at that the Committee’s level, I do not think it is proper for you to come and raise new objections against the Committee’s report that you all agreed upon (either by consensus or unanimously) and you come to raise new objections against it, that will not be accorded in the House.”

He noted that deliberations at the various committees’ levels and their reports were extremely crucial in the work of Parliament.

He reminded all Parliamentary Committees that they were required under the law to provide reports on matters referred to them before the expiration of the Session of the House, which must be complied with; unless leave had been sought and granted by the House.