The Executive Director of the Africa Center for Parliamentary Affairs, Dr. Rashid Dramani, says the Parliamentary Service Board should have included two non-partisan Ghanaians who could help the Speaker without bias or preference.
This comes after the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin announced the names of four persons to constitute the new Parliamentary Service Board on Monday, March 29, 2021, as part of a report he received from a special advisory committee set up for that purpose.
The members of the Board are Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Haruna Iddrisu and Abraham Osei Aidoo.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Dramani said although there is nothing wrong with the composition of the board, having two independent minds on the board would have gone a long way to help the Speaker of Parliament.
“The current composition of the board has Abraham Osei Adu who was Majority Leader at one point on the ticket of the NPP and Hon. Asiedu Nketia, so we should bring in technical people similar to the way corporate institutions work because there is already too much political representation on the board so the other slots could have gone to eminent people who will not be partisan in their approach and will provide help to the political leaders in terms of finding gaps and where they go wrong in their work.”
“I don’t think that Asiedu Nketia will freely point out if something is going wrong from his side and same with Abraham Osei Adu as compared to if the board had independent eminent Ghanaians,” he added.
Speaking on the negative reactions to the appointment of the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress into the board, Mr. Dramani stated that in his opinion, people just have a problem with the personality of Mr. Asiedu Nketia.
“It is just the personality that is the issue here. Otherwise, the tradition that our parliament has set is one where, in my opinion, instead of reserving the two spaces on the board to technical people or permanent Ghanaians, to work alongside the two leaders and the Speaker the tradition is that the parties bring one of their own. The former Speaker had the likes of Honourable Hackman Owusu Agyemang who eventually became the Chairman of the council of elders but he was on that board and it didn’t raise any flag so I think the issue here is rather just the personality of Hon. Asiedu Nketia,” he stated.
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SOURCE: ATLFMNEWSONLINE
