By Edzorna Francis Mensah.
The Speaker of Parliament has challenged Members of Parliament to take their oversight responsibility role very seriously and scrutinize 2022 thoroughly.
According to him, financial oversight and control over the public purse granted by law are very important roles of Parliament.
“The Constitutional imperatives of Parliamentary oversight and power of the purse are part of a long-established principle of separation of powers and its related principle of checks and balances”.
Speaking at a Post Budget Workshop on the 2022 Economic Policy of the Government at Ho, in the Volta Region, Speaker Alban Bagbin stressed that, “these are important mechanisms that enhance good governance, transparency and accountability of the government between general elections”.
“There has been growing importance of the oversight function of Parliament in contemporary governance across the world and this cannot be down-played”.
The Constitution 1992 and the Public Financial Management Act, 2016, (PFM Act), requires that Parliament provide oversight for budget and finance, government expenditure, performance reporting, post-legislative scrutiny and the impact of financial policy measures on the economy.
The Speaker charged the MPs to consider the session as an opportunity to ask all the needed questions about the medium term program and more particularly the 2022 Budget.
“It further provides us with an opportunity to engage with stakeholders from the various sectors of the economy and seek expert guidance on the salient issues in the budget. This will give us a clear direction as to how to go about fulfilling our mandate and oversight responsibility as legislators”.
The two-day Training Workshop under the theme: Building a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Nation: Fiscal Consolidation and job creations expected to equip the MPs with requisite knowledge to do quality debates on the floor of Parliament when the debate begins on Tuesday.
Some of the topics being discussed are; Policy underpinnings of the 2022 Budget-General analysis of the Budget. Overview of the 2022 Budget-Macro Economic and Fiscal Management and What to consider in analysing the 2022 Budget Sectoral Budget.
The rest are: Employment generation and public sector wages-the 2022 budget, decentralization of 2022 budget and composite budgeting, Scaling up infrastructure- the 2022 budget (roads, energy, ICT) and the health sector, COVID and post COVID economic management- the 2022 budget.
