Parliament Is Broke

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Parent Category: Main

Category: NewsBrief

Created on Tuesday, 10 June 2014 00:00

Parliament Is Broke

Deputy Minority leader in Parliament Dominic Nitiwul has warned, Parliamentary work may stall if government does not urgently resource the house financially.

According to him, basic materials to enable the house carry out its work are not available.

He was responding to calls by the Speaker of Parliament on MPs to speed up work available for consideration on Tuesday.

Joy News’ parliamentary correspondent Elton John Brobbey reported Mr. Nititwul of saying that even at the leadership level they are finding it difficult to convince members to attend committee meetings due to lack of funds to facilitate their movements.

He has therefore called on the Speaker to put pressure on the Finance Minister to resource Parliament, otherwise members of the house may not be able to attend official programmes.

The Minister should also be pressed upon to meet its statutory obligations such as releasing funds for the District Assembly Common Fund and GETFund.

The Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho in his response said he has been in talks with the Finance Minister about their concerns.

“But he denied the claim that the house suffered two postponements due to financial constraints,” Elton reported.

The Speaker said the roof of the main chamber of parliament ripped off during a rain storm, and also most of the members were on outreach programmes, explaining why the house was unable to meet as planned.

He also assured members that they would be provided with all the resources needed to execute business of the house for the short period that they would be sitting.

Source: Myjoyonline.com