January 31, 2017
 |
| Benjamin Boakye |
Under the sixth Parliament of the
Republic of Ghana, suspension of Parliament's standing order 80(1) became a
default mechanism for approving international commercial transactions. The
order requires that no motion shall be debated until at least, forty-eight
hours have elapsed after notice of the motion is given.
However, the practice in Ghana's
parliament, at least considering the operations of the immediate past
parliament, has made this order irrelevant, to say the least.
The 1992 Constitution of Ghana, by
its provision in Article 75, has given parliament extraordinary duty to check
the authority of the executive to commit the country to any form of agreement.
This is important to regulate
excesses of the executive which potentially could risk the finances of the
country and wellbeing of the people. Therefore, when agreements are negotiated
by the executive, parliament fulfills its constitutional duty by scrutinizing
the agreements to ensure that public interest is protected.
It is almost unthinkable to require
the whole House of Parliament to examine every document that comes before it in
detail, given its enormous responsibilities. Parliament in delivering on its
functions therefore has rules and processes to ensure that it is efficient at
what it does.
One such process is to allow
established committees of the House (averaging 22 members) to deliberate on
matters brought before them and submit their reports for the House to consider.
The committees have the opportunity
to invite the relevant government official(s) or agency representative(s)for
questioning in order to clarify any ambiguities that may come up in their work.
Notwithstanding the assignment of
work to specific committees, all other members of parliament have access to the
primary document(s) referred to committees which they can on their own review
and raise concerns while the committee executes its tasks.
A committee’s report is not a
binding conclusion on parliament on a matter referred to it; it provides
recommendation(s) for parliament to consider. When a committee finishes its
work, it thus presents a report to the House for debate.
It stands to reason therefore that
the spirit of Order 80(1) is to allow all other members of parliament to
critique a parliamentary committee’s report (which probably failed to [fully]
capture national interest, by reason of genuine oversight or as a result of the
cozy and plush ambience provided in first class hotels by lobbyists,) and
benchmark it against their own observations from the primary document(s) to
make informed inputs on the debating floor of parliament to achieve desired
outcomes.
Each parliamentarian deserves the
right to be heard and be fully apprised with information leading to
ratification of agreements. Order 80(1) is therefore a safeguard for this final
check on the Executive as it affords each parliamentarian, representing about
95,000 Ghanaians on average, enough time to comprehend matters of national
importance and an opportunity to be heard to ensure that citizens are truly
represented.
It also provides avenue for the
public who have interest in a subject matter to provide further information to
parliament to enhance the quality of decisions made on the behalf of the
people.
It had however become a worrying
practise during the tenure of Ghana’s recently dissolved 6th Parliament that
Parliament disregarded its own rules in taking important national decisions
when “big monies” were involved. Almost all the agreements, particularly those
relating to the energy sector, enjoyed a waiver of order 80(1). Between 2013
and 2016, 10 petroleum contracts were approved by Parliament. In the same
period 8 power agreement were also approved. None of these agreements enjoyed
activation of order 80(1).
What is even worrying is that the
companies, whose interest the parliament of Ghana bends its rules to favour,
did not attach similar urgency to the delivery of their part of the bargain.
Most of the oil companies who acquired oil blocks under the suspension of order
80(1) have not even moved to site till date. Same can be said about power
agreement holders.
Why the rush?
The reasoning behind the rushed
decisions of Parliament have been mixed and rather demeaning of its
highly-esteemed, constitutionally-mandated role. When the Eni Fiscal Support
Agreement and Security Package Term Sheet for Sankofa Gas went to Parliament,
the then honourable Majority leader Alban Bagbin said the investors had waited
for too long.
He added "Mr Speaker I agree
that we should urgently approve this project because the patience of the
investors is running out" (Hansard, 11 December 2014). This meant that the
extra 2 days’ minimum allowance for the consideration of the agreement was too
long to hurt the investor’s interest.
Essentially public interest in an
$8 billion agreement did not really matter. To the contrary, it is instructive
to note from the Hansard ((Hansard, 11 December 2014) that even members of the
joint committee of finance and energy who had been tasked to scrutinize the
agreement still had questions on the agreement on the floor of Parliament
relating to interest rate, debt to equity ratio and cost benefit analysis of
GNPC's investment in the project to achieve a reduced gas price.
Interestingly, those issues were
not debated in the house though the presence of the Ministers of Finance and
Energy, Mr Seth Terkper and Mr. Armah Kofi Buah respectively, provided enough
opportunity to deliberate on those key concerns which the public had earlier
expressed. Rather, the focus was on urgency and priority to Eni’s board meeting
to approve the company's annual programmes.
The Africa Centre for Energy Policy
did a report on the Eni deal, highlighting the fact that the gas price was too
high. If parliament had been diligent in its work to verify how government
concluded on the gas price, it would have realised that while the state
institutions (GNPC and Petroleum Commission) were not convinced by the price
Eni was seeking, the Ministry of finance unilaterally gave away the $9.8/
mmBtu, a gas price that is higher than any alternative for gas supply to Ghana.
My verdict of the sixth parliament.
It is always difficult to judge a
group as failures when at least there are voices you can single out for praise,
and/or decisions of the group you cannot fault. But this is not the case of
"one bad nut destroying the whole". The critical voices (which I can
link to public interest) in the last parliament were very few. And when it
mattered most, investor interest determined decisions of parliament. I still do
not know the motivation of individual parliamentarians and ministers who push
deals to warrant the suspension of parliament's standing orders. But I can put
it mildly that the last parliament was rather disappointing in protecting
national interest in " big money contracts”.
The New Parliament
The outcome of the December 7
elections makes it even scarier to imagine how easy it can be for contracts to
go through Parliament like we saw with the 6th Parliament. Unlike the previous
government, the ruling government has an overwhelming majority in parliament.
This raises the risk to whip the majority side to rush contracts through the
approval processes, if it happens that this new administration is characterized
by similar attitudes of the previous Executive where open contracting was
terribly weak.
My hope is that regardless of the
posturing of the executive arm of government, we can have a strong Speaker
clothed with the interest and aspirations of the ordinary Ghanaian to provide
the needed leadership to check the executive. The obvious question then is; how
can this be when a speaker is appointed by the president? Well, I'm tempted to
bank my hopes on three things:
First, on the integrity and control
of the Speaker, who coincidentally happens to be a pastor. I hope this will
help him to control the appetite of the executive. If the executive has nothing
to hide they should let the contracts out in good time so that we can all
debate and contribute to the process. For me, any ruling made by the speaker in
respect of “big money contracts”, I will reflect on this fact that he's a
pastor.
Secondly, that the president has
assured the public of his commitment to see a stronger independent parliament.
It will be great to see Parliament rise to claim this independence. Again I
will reflect on this with every contract that goes through Parliament.
Finally, that there will be voices
of change among the majority to support genuine minority positions in the 7th
Parliament who will insist on open contracting even when not popular with those
who may want to sacrifice the nation for their personal and/or party’s
interest.
I wish the new Parliament well and
I hope the Speaker will help steer a new order in the 7th Parliament.
God Bless our homeland Ghana
By: Benjamin Boakye
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