Public Agenda (Accra)
3 October 2008
The Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi Hughes has stressed the need for Ghana's Parliament and the United States Congress to forge closer links and cooperate in sharing ideas on best practices in Legislative work.
Mr. Hughes noted that unlike the Executive arms of Government which has established very close ties with the United States Presidency, there is not much going on in terms of relations between Parliament and US Congress.
The Rt. Hon. Speaker made this observation when the new United States Ambassador to Ghana Mr. Donald Gene Teitelbaum paid his first ever visit to Parliament since assuming duty as head of his country's mission in Ghana.
On Ghana US relations, Mr. Hughes said this has grown from strength to strength over the past years especially under President Kufuor culminating his current visit at the invitation of President George Bush.
He took the opportunity to commend the United States Government for the various forms of assistance and support the American Government has given to Ghana to date, citing the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and support in the Agriculture and Educational sectors as well as capacity building as major examples.
Speaker Hughes assured the new American Ambassador of his utmost support and cooperation during his tenure saying "my doors are always open".
On his part Mr. Teitelbaum thanked Rt. Hon. Sekyi Hughes for his kind words and that said his visit was a ground breaking one to introduce himself to Mr. Speaker and establish contact with the Leadership of Ghana's Legislature.
Present were the Second Deputy Speaker, Hon. Malik Alhassan Yakubu and the Clerk to Parliament Mr. Emmanuel Anyimadu. The US Ambassador was accompanied by his Deputy Chief of Mission, Madam Sue K. Brown.
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I'm not against this so called closer links with the US Congress but I think the Parliament of Ghana should first take a much closer look to their relationship to the people of Ghana,starting with their constituencies.
Most of the members of the US House of Representatives voted down a Bailout Bill quite recently all as a result of what they heard from their constituencies.
Now my first question to Paliarmentarians in Ghana is ... How many parliamentarians have contact phone numbers available to their constituents? and to make it more conspicuous and put their(i.e the parliamentarians) services to the people they represent, How many Parliamentarians have offices in their constituencies ?
At this time of our young and growing democracy some Parliamentarians have still not figured out how to coherently and cohesively work together with their district chief executive officers and district assembly members for the common good of the constituency
To me not until they do the following their closer links with the US Congress will not do Ghana any good but rather become a waste to the Ghanaian tax payers money with unecessary trips to and from the States to unecessary seminars,lecturers and training programs that would not help them and their constituents that need basics like good drinking water,clean and improved toilets,better schools,making sure modern and scientific ideas are made available and employed in solving problems and making sure gov't contracts within their jurisdiction are excuted and done well.
I'm positive Ghana Parliament could rise to this task even before we "Americanize our ghanaian issues which we could handle without playing the ostrich"