Odekro | What has your MP done for you?

Mr. Speaker

Order! Order! Correction of Votes and Proceedings for Thursday, 1st December, 2005. Pages 1, 2 ….12. [No corrections were made.]

Majority Leader (Mr. Felix Owusu

None

( i ) Loan Agreemen t be tween the Government of Ghana and the African Development Fund for an amount of UA 17,000,000 for financing the Export Marketing and Quality Awareness Project.

( i i ) R e q u e s t f o r t a x a n d duty exemptions totalling UA

82,278.06 (US$123,417.09

equivalent) on vehicles, field and office equipment and supplies in respect of the implementation of the Nerica Rice Dissemination

Project (NRDP).

( i i i ) D e v e l o p m e n t C r e d i t A g r e e m e n t b e t w e e n t h e Government of Ghana and the International Deve- lopment Association for an amount of SDR 13,900,000 (US$20.0 million equivalent) for the Multi-Sectoral HIV/AIDS Project (M-SHAP).

Majority Leader (Mr. Felix Owusu

None

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, Maputo, 11th July 2003.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs/ Leader of the House (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢4,095 million for the services of the Public Services Commission (PSC) for the 2006 fiscal year.
Mr. Speaker, I would want to wait for the motion to be seconded and thereafter, present the Report of the Committee. This being a special body under the Constitution, it is being handled this way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. A. Ossei Aidooh (NPP - Tema

West): Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion.

Question proposed.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, the 2006 Annual Estimates of the Public Services Commission was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the 1992 Constitution and Standing Orders of the House, following the presentation of the Budget Statement and the Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December, 2006, on 10th November 2005, by the hon. Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
2.0 Background
2.1 Reference Documents
To discharge its assigned duties, the Committee availed itself of the following documents:
The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
The Standing Orders of the House.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for preceding years, notably the 2000, 2004 and 2005 financial years.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2006 financial year.
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the Public Services Commission (PSC)
The PSC exists to safeguard and promote integrity, accountability and competence in public services in Ghana, through the rendering of advisory, consultative, regulatory and supervisory services. In pursuance of this, the PSC envisions to become an autonomous body whose advice and opinions are respected and recognized as authoritative and indicative of best practices in human resource management and development.
Ultimately, the Commission aims to ensure competence and professionalism whilst ridding the Public Services of corruption, nepotism and favouritism.
The PSC hopes to actualize or execute this mandate through the following objectives, which are in line with the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy:
to promote the development of manpower increase and sustain opportunities;
to establ ish and maintain a computerized personnel information system in the Public Services;
to rationalize and define structures, roles and procedures for performance management in the Public Service;
to ensure the expeditious resolution of grievances of Public Servants; and
to strengthen the institutional capacity of the PSC to fulfil its Constitutional mandate.
3.0 The 2005 Budget Estimates of the Public Services Commission
(PSC)
A total of ¢4,093,000,000.00 has been allocated to the PSC to be disbursed as follows:
Personal Emoluments
-- ¢1,672,000,000.00
Administration
-- ¢1,300,000,000.00
Service
a n d S t r a t e g i e s t o E n s u r e Sustainable, Adequate and Equitable Compensation in the Public Service; and
The Effective Development of Science, Engineering and Tech- nology for Sustainable Develop- ment in Ghana.
iv. Development of Personnel Database for the Public Services
The Committee was informed that in the avid pursuit of good governance, the PSC is to design a computerized personnel data management system on all public service organizations. In addition, the PSC will collaborate with other public sector organizations to develop an Integrated Personnel Payroll Database Phase II. Apart from this the PSC also aims to develop a website to ensure easy access to information by the PSC's clientele and to enable the PSC market itself.
v. Allocation of Service Budget
Given the enormousness of the task confronting the PSC, the Committee observed that the provision made for the PSC's core business, Service, is very inadequate. The PSC requested ¢1.8 billion for their activities during the 2006 financial year and have been given only ¢331 million, which would make it impossible for any of the scheduled activities to be undertaken. In the light of this therefore, the PSC and the Committee wish to plead with the MOFEP to allocate more funds to the PSC, should there be some available during the year, or to provide the PSC with some HIPC Funds to supplement their allocation for service activities.
5.0 Recommendation and Conclusion
The Committee recommends to the House, the approval of the sum of ¢4,094,000,000.00 for the running of the operations of the Public Services Commission for the 2006 financial year and hopes that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning would be able to supplement the PSC's budget during the year, should there be any more money available, to enable the PSC undertake its planned activities and ultimately execute its mandate.
Respectfully submitted.
Question put and motion agreed to.
Resolved:
That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢4,094 million for the services of the Public Services Commission (PSC) for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢122,021 million for the services of the Audit Service for the 2006 fiscal year. I beg to move.

Mr. A. Ossei Aidooh

Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion.
Question proposed.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, the 2006 Annual Estimates of the Audit Service was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in

Mr. J. Y. Chireh (NDC - Wa West)

Mr. Speaker, I want to support the motion but to urge that the Audit Service takes its responsibility seriously because it is one public institution that is to help fight corruption in the country.
Over the past few years, sometimes in the media, you hear the Auditor-General speaking about other people not paying taxes and chasing after people, as if the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or the revenue agencies are not doing their work well. I think that for us to be approving this budget for the Audit Service, the Auditor-General together with his staff must concentrate on their core business of making sure that audits are conducted timely to guide this House as to how the public institutions are performing, rather than engage in other things that really are not contingent upon the duties of the Audit Service.
With these few words, I urge that we all support the motion.

Mr. J. D. Mahama (NDC - Bole- Bamboi)

Mr. Speaker, I also rise to
support the motion and also to say that the Constitution crafts a very special role for the Auditor-General and it recognizes that Office and gives it a lot of respect and seriousness. And so I would like to urge that as much as possible, whoever occupies the august position of Auditor- General must resist the temptation of being politically partisan. He must try and be as neutral as possible and not to use the position to try and politically witch-hunt a political opponent.
We are approving this appropriation, but we urge that the Auditor-General must try and be as non-partisan as possible.

Mr. A. K. Agbesi (NDC -- Ashaiman)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to support this motion by calling on the Auditor-General to come out with his report as early as possible to enable the public to know what has been audited and what the report contains.
Mr. Speaker, it is said that the Audit Service exists to enhance accountability, probity and transparency in the utilisation of all public resources and to ensure good governance on behalf of the people of Ghana. Mr. Speaker, my issue is that if the reports are not brought out early enough, the people of Ghana will not know what has been audited.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I would like the Auditor-General to take his work seriously and straight to the point. Mr. Speaker, there are times when district assembly funds are called into question. Members in those communities or units call upon the Assemblies to let them know their accounts and for years they do not tell them.
I am even concerned about an Assembly

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Nana Akufo-Addo)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the call for the approval of the Estimates and also to say that the institutions of our State have to be encouraged to work objectively and well. It is unfortunate if in our country at times, somebody in public life is a victim or the object of some uncomplimentary remarks by the Auditor-General and that is therefore translated into witch-hunting and political partisanship. None of us in this country is above the law.
The Auditor-General is one of the institutions which have been established to enforce the laws of the Republic and the laws apply to everybody, whether you are the President, Vice-President, a Minister of State, Minority Leader, Spokesperson, Minister for Foreign Affairs; everybody in this country is involved. There ought to be no attempt to transform any action on his part, merely because it is his work, to protect a section of the community from either witch-hunting or political partisanship.
What we on the floor of this House want to do is to encourage the institutions of our Republic to work to their best and not to try and denigrate the efforts they are making to promote respect for the rule of law in our country.
With these few words, Mr. Speaker, I would like to support the motion.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Chief Whip, are you resuming your seat?

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (NPP -- Suame)

No, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I also rise to associate myself with the motion on the floor and just to say that the ritual of the Auditor- General submitting audited accounts to Parliament, which then is perused by the Public Accounts Committee, is an onerous responsibility of Parliament. Mr. Speaker all said and done, I believe Parliament would be doing a better job if, indeed, we target certain institutions every year and delve deeper into their operations. Mr. Speaker, that is the practice in most advanced democracies.
If the ritual becomes something that we want to avail ourselves of like examining all audited accounts of every public corporation or quasi-institutions, then we may not be able to accomplish any task or do it with diligence. We do know, we do hear and we do listen a lot to instances of malfeasance going on in our society. So it would be appropriate for us, for the Auditor-General to submit reports on these institutions and MDAs to Parliament and the Public Accounts Committee would apply critical analysis to these areas and come out.
I am talking about the District Assemblies. Every year we are talking about them and yet nothing seems to come out. We have instances of misappro- priations and misapplications of thirty million cedis or forty million cedis and that really is nothing to write home about.
But we do know that there are instances
where, for instance, a six-classroom block is built at a cost of say two hundred million cedis; a similar structure is constructed at a cost of about six hundred million cedis. Mr. Speaker, that, indeed, cannot be right. So it is important for us, as Parliament, as the Public Accounts Committee for the Auditor-General to apply critical thinking and analyses to these areas.
When we are able to finish with them, perhaps the next year, we can tackle another area. That really would help us. But if it becomes, as it is now, the ritual to look everywhere, at the end of the day, we may end up not doing much to help save the scanty resources of this country.
Mr. Speaker, we have also said that the Public Accounts Committee itself could act proactively in the discharge of its responsibilities, even though the Standing Orders appear to foreclose the door to the workings of committees in this House. But except references are made to them, they cannot, as it were, act on matters which have not been referred to them. But there is a window of opportunity in our Standing Orders which allows them to act proactively. Mr. Speaker, we believe that the Public Accounts Committee must take advantage of these provisions in our Standing Orders and act proactively in order to save the scanty resources of this country.
Mr. Speaker, with that I would want to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this motion.
Question put and motion agreed to.
Resolved:
That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢122,021 million for the services of the Audit Service for the 2006 fiscal year.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (Mr. Felix Owusu-Adjapong)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢1,042 million for the services of the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. A. O. Aidooh

Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion.
Question proposed.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the Report of the Special Budget Committee.
1.0 Introduction
The 2006 Annual Estimates of the District Assemblies Common Fund was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the 1992 Constitution and Standing Orders of the House following the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December 2006 on 10th November 2005 by the hon. Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
The Commit tee met wi th the Administrator of the Fund and reports as follows:
2.0 Background
2.1 Reference Documents
To discharge its assigned duties, the
Committee availed itself of the following documents:
The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
The Standing Orders of the House.
The Budge t S ta tement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2004 and 2005 financial years.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2006 financial year.
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the Office of the DACF
The Office of the DACF exists to equitably distribute part of the National Tax Revenue to the District Assemblies for development. Among other activities, these aims and objectives are achieved through:
i . D e v e l o p i n g a n a g r e e d sharing formula for approval by Parliament;
i i . A d m i n i s t e r i n g a n d distributing monies allocated into the Common Fund to the District Assemblies in accordance with the approved formula; and
i i i . Ensu r ing f a i rnes s , equ i ty a n d t r a n s p a r e n c y i n t h e distribution and administration of the Fund.
In pursuing these goals, the DACF has set itself objectives, principal among which include:
Establishing a comprehensive system for monitoring and evaluating releases to District Assemblies;
Ensuring the effective utilization of funds to generate growth and reduce
poverty; and
Unde r t ak ing pe r iod i c impac t assessments of the Fund on development and poverty reduction in the various districts.
3.0 The 2006 Budget Estimates of the Office of the District Assemblies Common Fund
A total amount of ¢1,042,000,000 has been allocated to the DACF to be disbursed as follows:
Personal Emoluments
-- ¢297,000,000.00
Administration
-- ¢350,000,000.00
Service
-- ¢ 27,000,000.00
Investments
-- ¢368,000,000.00
Total
-- ¢1,042,000,000.00
4.0 Observations and Recommendations
The Committee observed that over the years, the Service budget of the DACF has been reducing, though a core function of the DACF is to ensure the effective and judicious utilization of the funds which are relayed to the Districts by carrying out

Mr. Lee Ocran (NDC - Jomoro)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to lend my voice to the motion on the floor but, in doing so, I would wish that the District Assemblies
Common Fund Administrator's Office were properly resourced so that, as the Majority Leader said, the funds that are sent to the districts would be properly monitored.
Every year, so much money goes to the districts but you go to the districts and poverty keeps growing. So much money for poverty alleviation goes there but how the money is distributed, in fact, it is very difficult to understand. You go to the districts and you see ugly structures being put up at exorbitant costs. Really, it seems we are not in the 21st Century. Some of the districts seem to be living in the 19th Century with designs, Heaven knows, where they come from.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot continue sending moneys to the districts without knowing what the moneys are for; and it is the responsibility of the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund to make sure that the moneys that go to the districts are properly used.
Of course, the Members of Parliament have oversight responsibility to make sure that the moneys that go to their districts are properly used, but then you know the relationship that exists between District Chief Executives (DCEs) and Members of Parliament; any Member of Parliament who tries to do his work properly is seen by the DCE as plying into his area of control; and to avoid conflicts sometimes one has to turn a blind eye to some of these things.
So Mr. Speaker, I wish to lend my voice to the fact that if moneys become available in the course of the year, the Office of the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund should be given additional funds to make it possible for the Office to monitor the proper use of the funds.
Mr. J. A. Ndebugre ( PNC --
Zebilla): Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this motion and, in doing so, I have a few remarks to make. I want to follow up or to develop further the issues raised by my very good Friend, the hon. Member for Jomoro.
The essence of the decentralization policy is to bring government to the doorstep of the people, to make state officials, not government officials, accountable to the people. And in this regard, judicial notice ought to be taken of the fact that in the developed jurisdictions even what we know here as civil service positions are electable so that people can control the people who are disbursing their funds and ordering their lives. It is in this respect that I think the budget for the District Assemblies Common Fund
ought to be boosted so that certain things that have not been provided for can be provided for.
One particular thing that I am worried about is the fact that there is no office in the constituency for the Member of Parliament. It is all right if you are in Greater Accra Region, you can always go even to your own private office and then receive your constituents; but when you are coming from a place like where I come from, Zebilla, 800 kilometres from Accra, when I arrive there, my house becomes a market; everybody just comes there. I mean you just cannot contain the situation. We need to have offices, not at the centre alone but Members of Parliament need to have offices in their constituencies. [Hear! Hear!] We need to -- [Interruption.]

Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin

Mr. Speaker,
on a point of relevance. We are talking about the budget of the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator; the offices of Members of Parliament and the rest do not come under the Administrator. His comments could be relevant when we are dealing with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. But these are just to support the activities of the Administrator and we do not come under him at all. Mr. Speaker, so he could veer to the relevant issue on the table.

Mr. Ndebugre

Mr. Speaker, I thank my younger brother for having drawn my attention. But what I am trying to say is that the Administrator ought to be empowered to even come before this House and argue this matter that I am arguing, because if he is there and he is sending funds to the districts -- and hon. Lee Ocran, the hon. Member for Jomoro, sitting about 30 degrees to the west of your goodself did say that we send money to the districts and Parliament is unable to perform its oversight responsibilities; that
is the point I am making.
I am saying that this should come even from the Administrator. The Administrator should not just sit there and disburse funds and not worry himself about how the funds are used. Maybe, I agree with him; when the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development comes to present his report, I may expatiate further; but I am saying that the Administrator ought to be empowered so that he will be able to bring these matters before us so that we can find quick solutions to them.
I want to also commend the Office of the Administrator - incidentally, I just came from there this morning. He and his staff are very receptive as far as I am concerned. There are other areas where you go and the reception is not as good. I do not want to mention names of persons or organizations but I want to commend them; and in order that they continue to be so receptive, we need to oil them and that is why I think that if in the middle of the year or in the course of the year there are extra funds, we should make those funds available to them so that they can continue to push the principle of decentralization forward.
With these few words, Mr. Speaker, I wish to support the motion.

Mr. J. Y. Chireh (NDC - Wa West)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion and to urge that we vote for the amount indicated. But if we have the opportunity of giving additional money to the Common Fund Administrator, we should do so. I say so because if you look at the criteria upon which we develop or approve the Formula for sharing the Common Fund, it is he who is supposed to go round and get the statistical basis, development statistics and all the social information that we need to
inform the approval process.
Mr. Speaker, if you do not give him enough money to be able to undertake this exercise, anytime he brings the criteria here, he will tell everybody in this House that Wa West has seven doctors, when indeed Wa West, Wa East and then Wa Municipal Assembly share the seven doctors in one hospital in Wa. I think this is not good.
When one big tarred road passes through your constituency, that is the basis for which you will get less money because you have development in your constituency or district. I think that we should enable the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator to be fairer in bringing us all the information that will inform the approval process.
Again, in terms of supervision, he is supervising; but I think that the primary responsibility for supervising that the proper thing is done, is for the Regional Coordinating Councils, which are also given money from the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator for the purposes of supervision, to be able to do this work.
Indeed, I cannot imagine the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator or his staff going round 138 districts to ensure that funds are not misappropriated or shoddy work is not done on projects. I think it must be the Regional Coordinating Councils together with all of us who should insist on value-for-money in terms of this. But he also still needs to be on the lookout.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about preparation of supplementary budgets. I think it is not proper that in the middle of

Mr. Speaker

The Leadership of the
House will take this matter up.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker,
I thought after they finish the comments, I would then respond to any of such comments.

Mr. Speaker

All right.
Mr. E. T. Mensah (NDC - Ningo
Prampram): Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion and in doing so, I would want to draw the Chairman of the Special Budget Committee's attention to an issue which will have to be rationalized.
We are talking about the Office of the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator being under the confines of monitoring. I mean, it will be very difficult for that four-man unit to be able to monitor the use of the Common Fund. If it is a constitutional obligation then what we need to do is -- The need for the rationalization is that we have Local Government Inspectorate Division under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development which is supposed to monitor at least the works of the District Assemblies, just like they were playing the role of internal auditors; and then we are talking again about monitoring. If we want to monitor the use of the Common Fund, rational use, then there is the need for us to move away from the old ways of preparing the budget.
I have said it again and again and again. If you look at the way the District Assemblies prepare their budgets, it is business as usual. And if you have a District Chief Executive (DCE) who is not solid, he enters the office and he will use the Common Fund to pay off debts on contracts which have been awarded. The kind of consultation that we talk about in the decentralization process does not go beyond even the town council area, when it comes to the preparation of the budgets.
So I am saying that we need to find a way to rationalize, because if you prepare the budget, it is you, being part of the preparation of the budget, who would
know where the monies will be going and then you follow up to monitor. So what I am saying is that, it will be necessary for us to find ways and means, even though it is a constitutional obligation, of bringing the various players on board.
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has a responsibility to monitor, the Regional Co-ordinating Councils have monitoring responsibilities and then the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator. How do we bring them together, on a common platform, for them to be able to do their work effectively?
Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (NPP
- Suame): Mr. Speaker, I just want to add a little bit to what the Deputy Minority Whip has just said. Indeed, the outfit of the Office of the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund is a very small one. They have a very small secretariat and yet what entails in their responsibility is quite herculean and enormous.
Mr. Speaker, i t is of profound
significance to saving resources for this country; among other things, they are to engage in on-the-spot inspection of monies that have been relayed to various people and make sure that such monies have been judiciously applied, and not misapplied or misappropriated. Mr. Speaker, as the hon. Member for Ningo/Prampram (Mr. E. T. Mensah) has said, it is a responsibility that is clearly beyond the resource base of the Office of the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund.
So we need to really harmonise the operations of the Office of the Administrator of the Common Fund, the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry and even the Regional Co- ordinating Councils such that efforts will not be unnecessarily duplicated. If they

Mr. Speaker

Majority Leader, do you wish to wind up?

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr.
Speaker, it is just unfortunate that these special institutions do not have their representatives here. Perhaps, it may be the result of what happened last week. It was programmed that we were going to discuss their budgets last Thursday and then we decided to give preference to the other Ministries, some of whom, for instance, were to leave for Navrongo and things like that, and perhaps my secretariat forgot to remind them that it had been rescheduled for today. I wish to apologise, that it was not an intentional act.
Perhaps, it is a break of communication between our office and their office that it has been rescheduled from last Thursday to today. But as it is, I would try and draw the attention of the bodies to take note of what has been said through the Hansard and hope that in the light of the new understanding that next year the Committee should be given more and more opportunities to have quarterly or mid-year discussions with the agencies concerned, this lapse would be overcome.
As regards the small size of the body,
perhaps the framers expected them not to be a big organisation but to be able to take plural decisions and refer them to the local government inspectorate body. I take this as a very good advice aimed at ensuring that we get value for money at all material times and I want to thank hon. Members for being frank and sincere in their comments towards the approval of this budget. I thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Question put and motion agreed to.
Resolved:
That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢1,042 million for the services of the District Assemblies Common Fund Adminis-trator for the 2006 fiscal year.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢33,992 million for the services of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu

Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion.

Chairman of the Special Budget Committee (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the Report of the Committee.
1.0 Introduction
The 2006 Annual Estimates of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the 1992 Constitution and Standing Orders of the House following the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December 2006 on 10th November 2005 by the hon. Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
The Committee met with the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ and technical teams from both the Commission and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) and reports as follows:
2.0 Background
2.1 Reference Documents
To discharge its assigned duties, the Committee availed itself of the following documents:
The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
The Standing Orders of the House.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for preceding years, notably the 2000, 2004 and 2005 financial years.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2006 financial year.
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the CHRAJ
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) exists to enhance good governance by protecting, promoting and enforcing fundamental freedoms for all people in Ghana. These aims are to be achieved through:
i. The e ff ec t ive p romot ion of a culture of respect for other people's rights by society;
ii. Providing oversight guidance in administrative justice to ensure fairness, transparency, efficiency and the application of best practice.
The prime objectives through which CHRAJ intends to achieve its set goals include, but are not limited to the following:
To protect and promote human rights and administrative justice at all levels of society especially the vulnerable and excluded;
To initiate the development of an effective legal framework for an effective delivery of service; and
To empower CHRAJ to enforce

Mr. A. K. Agbesi (NDC - Ashaiman)

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a contribution to the motion on the floor.
Looking at page 2 of the Report, one
of the objectives of the CHRAJ is to empower CHRAJ to enforce its decisions. Mr. Speaker, this particular issue has been worrying a lot of people, particularly workers whose rights have been violated and have resorted to CHRAJ for redress. At the end of CHRAJ deliberations, decisions that are arrived at are not normally enforced by CHRAJ. One has to go back to court for enforcement. Mr. Speaker, if this is the position, it is my humble call on the Commissioner that this aim or objective should be seriously pursued and CHRAJ should have the opportunity to be able to enforce its decisions so that those whose rights are violated and they resort to CHRAJ would have a permanent solution.
Mr. Speaker, in some cases, those affected are so poor and so vulnerable to the extent that without CHRAJ giving them these services, they cannot on their own, do anything. At the end of the day, they are there without any remedy. Mr. Speaker, it is my wish that CHRAJ would pursue this matter to the letter.
With these few words, I support the motion.

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin)

Mr. Speaker, I stand to support the motion even though with a bit of reluctance. This is so because I believe that we are not paying much attention to the constitutional bodies that we have established to make sure that the

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin)

democratic culture that we are looking forward to is enhanced in our society.
Mr. Speaker, I want to urge this House to expedite action on the review of the Standing Orders so that we could permit in our Standing Orders the heads of these constitutional bodies, the bodies that we want to be impartial, to appear before Parliament and move the motions for not just their reports but also for their budget estimates. Mr. Speaker, that will give some sort of independent perception to these bodies and in fact, enhance debate on the activities and functions of these constitutional commissions.

Mr. Speaker, good governance is not a generosity of an executive arm of government. Good governance, as we envisaged in our Constitution, will involve the healthy interplay of all of the institutions of governance, and these are some of the institutions that we expect to check us, especially we the politicians who are partisan because that is what we opted for -- a multipartisan democratic system.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen that for sometime now, the Human Rights Commission (CHRAJ) has been relegated to the background; the resources that we give them make it almost impossible for them to operate and not much is heard of them these days. I am not surprised that a lot of the professional staff have left the Commission and you can see in the report that there is a serious complaint and that the Committee is urging upon the Government to take a second look at the allocation that they make to the Commission.

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu

(NPP -- Suame) : Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to also add my voice to approve the budget Estimates for CHRAJ.
Mr. Speaker, as a constitutional body, they need the support of all of us, not least, the Members of Parliament to accord them respect so that other people in Ghana, civil society would also accord them similar respect and support. Mr. Speaker, if anything should be done to undermine the authority and sovereignty of the institution then of course, we will be eroding the constitutional authority of CHRAJ.
Mr. Speaker, the point has been made by an hon. Colleague of ours relating to empowering CHRAJ to enforce its decisions. Mr. Speaker, year in, year out, we have talked about this decision and yet nothing concrete has been done. What needs to be done -- and we all do know what we need to do -- is to empower CHRAJ to place it in a position
to enforce its decisions. Mr. Speaker, we do know that not until we amend the Act that is relating to the establishment of CHRAJ, they cannot, even though every year we would talk about it, enforce their decisions.
So, perhaps, the time has come for us as a House, to look at this again and look at finding ways, even if we may have to initiate a Private Member's Bill to that effect, to give them the authority to enforce their decisions. Otherwise it becomes a yearly ritual, in approving their budget, of raising it and nothing is done about that.
Mr. Speaker, CHRAJ has the onerous duty of going round the country to make sure that at least, the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) and National Health Insurance Scheme Programmes are being implemented. Unfortunately, as we hear, the institution has only one cross-country vehicle and that cross-country vehicle has a very weak engine, so the running cost is very, very high and therefore they cannot move with the vehicle. They are stuck in Accra and keep issuing directives via telephone calls and so on and that cannot be in the best interest of CHRAJ as an institution.
Mr. Speaker, so fortunately, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning is allocating to them some HIPC funds and the Committee is counselling them -- the Committee is recommending to CHRAJ to use part of the HIPC funds allocated to them to purchase some of these cross country vehicles. Mr. Speaker, I believe that they can buy at least, two of them for a start to begin serious rounds in the country.
Again, as was real ized at the Committee's sitting, the Service budget was slashed hugely and yet we do know
that the core duty of responsibility of CHRAJ is the provision of services.
Mr. Speaker, if the policy of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the Ministry of Education and Sports is to have across-the-board slashing of the service budgets of MDAs, then it is the plea of the Committee that they have a second look at these institutions which provide services, like CHRAJ, like National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and so on. Mr. Speaker, theirs is basically and primarily service based.
So it is recommended to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to have a second look at topping up the service budget of CHRAJ to enable them perform their core duties. Otherwise, whatever is given to them, Mr. Speaker, would be spent on personal emoluments and administration and the real work of CHRAJ will not be carried out. Mr. Speaker, that is the plea of the Committee and I beg to submit that.
Thank you, very much for your indulgence.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Majority Leader, do you wish to wind up?

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank my hon. Colleagues for the useful comments they made all aimed at improving how we look at these budget estimates.
Mr. Speaker, one thing we found was that almost all the agencies that appeared before the Special Committee were, by and large, able to explain why they should get additional funding except that one needed to find where we were going to cut to transfer to them. Should we reduce expenditure on education or health so that we can support these bodies?
The best solution is possibly to increase the national cake so that even with the same percentage, you would be able to have a bigger amount. We however had the assurance from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning that should it be

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Majority Leader, I understand you want to make an application.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker,
could we take item 14.

Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr. Alan Kyeremateng)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this august House approves the sum of two hundred and seventeen billion, six hundred and thirteen million cedis (¢217,613,000,000.00) under the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) Estimates for the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the year ending 31st December, 2006.
Mr. Speaker, for the first time in the history of this country, a national trade policy has been produced by the
Government and was subsequently launched in February 2005. As a further step to implement this National Trade Policy, a comprehensive Trade Sector Support Programme has also been completed. The Trade Sector Support Programme which is designated as (TSSP) for that is designed to systematically operationalise the Ghana Trade Policy and deliver rapid and strategic expansion of Ghana's productive base. The TSSP adopts a new approach to trade capacity building in that, it is centred on strengthening Government's capacity to deliver long- term sustained change in the trade sector.
Mr. Speaker, the five-year TSSP aims also at contributing to an accelerated and sustainable economic growth for increased incomes and employment for the people of Ghana. This will be achieved by significantly enhancing Ghana's competitiveness in international and domestic markets and improving economic regulation for business and consumers alike.
Mr. Speaker, in the Micro, Small and Medium-Scale Enterprise Sector, the Ministry has completed the formulation of a new project for IDA funding, with the objective of enhancing the compe- titiveness and employment generation levels of Ghanaian MSMEs. This will be achieved through the following measures:
(i) Developing and strengthening the capacity:
(a) local intermediaries to deliver financial and non- financial services to MSMEs, and to make productive use of these services in order to boost production and to meet supply targets on schedule;
( i i ) t o r e d u c e s e l e c t e d

Mr. Speaker, the GRATIS Foundation will pursue its core objectives by providing

Support for 20 groups mainly women in food processing as well as training in textiles for 240 women.
In the area of appropriate technology, GRATIS will develop a 5-tonne palm fruit digester and oil expeller, to support the growth of the oil palm industry particularly in the President's Special Initiative.
Ghana Trade Fair Company (GTFC)
Mr. Speaker, the Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited will be hosting the 10th Ghana International Trade Fair in February 2006, which is expected to bring together Business Executives and Investors from many parts of the world with the potential of generating much needed investments in critical areas of the economy as well as generate foreign exchange and tax revenues. The Trade Fair Company is programmed to embark on a medium to long-term development programme which will revamp its facilities to a first class Trade Fair and Exhibition Centre in the subregion, working in collaboration with a strategic investor.

Mr. Speaker, the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC) will be restructured and will develop new market linkages in the ECOWAS subregion for dry chillies/pepper, citrus and other products where Ghana has a comparative advantage. On handicrafts, the iden- tification of three new bulk buyers will provide yet another leap in non-traditional export revenue to a projected US$963 million in 2006. Support will be given towards the establishment of bulk distribution infrastructure for Ghanaian products in the ECOWAS, SADC and EU markets.

Mr. Speaker, in this respect, it is worth noting that from the figure of US$400 million which the non-traditional exports sector recorded at the end of 2000, as export revenue, there has been a significant increase to a figure of over US$840 million to date in 2005. It is projected that this figure will increase to over US$1 billion by the end of 2006.

Ghana Free Zones Board

Mr. Speaker, in 2006 the Ghana Free Zones Board has projected to register additional 25 new companies, increasing the total number of registered companies to 170. This is expected to generate export revenue of US$961.1 million.

Last but not least, Mr. Speaker, the Ghana Standards Board will play a more prominent and active role in prosecuting our trade and industrial development agenda. And its operations will be extended to the regions and a new programme will be introduced under which private laboratories will be certified and accredited to perform some of the functions on behalf of the Ghana Standards Board. From the strategic point of view, the Ghana Standards Board will separate its core regulatory functions from its commercial and service functions.

Mr. Speaker, to pursue all the above- mentioned programmes, projects and activities, the following amounts albeit inadequate have been allocated to the Ministry and its agencies under the following headings:

GOG (¢) IGF (¢)

Donor (¢)

Personal Emoluments

26,882,000,000 7,396,785,900

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to second the motion so ably moved by the hon. Minister for Trade and Industry and in so doing, Mr. Speaker, to move the Committee's report on the Ministry's Estimates.
1.0 Introduction
Mr. Speaker, on 10th November 2005 the Government Budget Statement and
and is grateful for their co-operation.
5.0 Mission and Objectives
The Mission of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI) is to provide assistance for the private commercial and industrial sectors through policy support access to credit and market, standards and information.
5.1 Allocation to Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI)
The Commit tee observed that MOTI has been allocated an amount of ¢217,613,000,000.00 comprising ¢82 ,338 , -000 ,000 .00 f rom GOG funds, with ¢32,467,000,000.00 from Internally Generated Fund (IGF) of the Ministry as well as a donor component of ¢102,808,000,000.00. This amount is an increment of ¢6,813,000,000.00 representing 9.6 per cent compared to the 2005 allocation of ¢210,200,000,000.00.
It was further noted that allocations for Personal Emolument for headquarters increased by 23.4 per cent as compared to that of last year. In the same vein allocations for Administration increased by 57.24 per cent as compared to that of last year. However, allocations to Service decreased by 23.61 per cent and allocations for Investment also decreased 30.03 per cent.
5.2 Allocation to Agencies
Budgetary allocation for GRATIS Foundation and Gateway Secretariat is embedded in the allocation to the Ministry. Ghana Free Zones Board and Ghana Trade Fair Authority are however self-financing.
For a comparative analysis of
2005/2006 estimates for MOTI refer to Appendix 1 at the back of the report.
5.3 Budget Allocation for 2006 -- Ghana Standards Board (GSB)
To encourage the Ghana Standards Board to perform its duty of Metrology, Standardization, Testing and Quality Assurance for the year 2006 the GSB was allocated ¢5,900,000,000.00 million. 5.4 Budget Allocation for 2006 -- Ghana Export Promotion Council
(GEPC)
The Ghana Export Promotion Council in the year 2006 intends to develop new market linkages in the ECOWAS sub- region for dry chillies, pepper and citrus where Ghana has comparative advan- tages, among other projects.
5 . 5 B u d g e t A l l o c a t i o n f o r 2006 -- National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI)
The NBSSI in the year 2006 has also planned to set up thirteen business advisory centres in the districts to promote rural entrepreneurship and create employment opportunities.
6. Observations and Recommendations
The Committee in considering the Annual Estimates of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI) made the following observations:
6.1 Ghana Trade Fair Authority
The Committee noted that the Ghana Trade Fair Authority after being trans- formed to a limited liability company has made several requests for annual govern- ment support in a form of subvention or re- capitalization but has not been successful.
Currently, only two (2) out of five (5) High-tension transformers are in operation. Furthermore the transformers are over 40 years and thus do not function effectively. All heavy-duty underground cables at the centre are obsolete. About

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea)

34 per cent of power supplies to the centre leak underground and almost all pavilions suffer from leakages, which urgently need reroofing. The authority requires ¢42,840,000,000.00 recapitalization to
the Ministry to engage the Lands Commission to resolve this issue. In the meantime the Authority should be assisted so it can host successfully the 10th International Trade Fair in 2006.

address these defects.

The Authority is however, hampered from securing strategic investor(s). A major cause of this is the lack of secure title to the land. The Committee urged

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6.2 Gateway Secretariat

The Gateway Secretariat is still fraught with challenges. A prominent challenge is the frequent breakdown of the GCNET port inspection machines, due to frequent power outages. Outages and fluctuations continually affect the systems and destroy other appliances.

The Committee recommended special urgent budgetary support to procure electricity generators for the machines so as to minimize the disruptions as part of government support for the Gateway project.

The Committee also noted that there is a lot of room for improvement in the operations of the secretariat in order to

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position Ghana as a true gateway. It was noted for example, that flight schedules from Kotoka International Airport are not readily available. It should be possible to call allocated numbers on mobile or fixed lines for timely updated information on flight arrivals and departures. Concern was also expressed on frequent breakdown of the air-condition system at the airport.

The Committee also urges fast tracking of the separation of management from ownership of the airport so as to enhance investment and operation.

6.3 Ghana Standards Board (GSB)

The Committee expressed serious concern on the apparent inability in resolving the conflict of roles between

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea)

the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) and the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). The Committee learnt that a proposed revision of the statute to resolve the rivalry, ambiguities and conflicts between the two public boards has been lying at the Attorney-General's Department over the last two years.
The Committee recommended the summons of the responsible officials to account. The Committee intends to keenly follow this issue in the year.
6 . 4 G h a n a E x p o r t P ro m o t i o n Council (GEPC)
The Committee observed that one primary aim of EDIF is to access credit and develop product for exporters. The GEPC has however had problems accessing grants from EDIF. They have for the past three years not received more than ¢3 billion from EDIF to support national product development for export.
EDIF should therefore be encouraged by the Sector Ministry to support the product development programmes of the Council, which now solely relies on government funds.
The Committee recommends that GEPC should collaborate more closely with the various sectors (especially the President's Special Initiatives (PSI's)) to ensure harmonious operations on expanding Ghana's export.

6.5 GRATIS Foundation

On GRATIS Foundation, Mr. Speaker, the Committee was impressed by the array of appropriate technology industrial machines developed by the GRATIS Foundation including cassava graters,

chipping machine, bagging stands, double screw press, gari sifter, palm fruit stripper, palm fruit steamer, oil expeller, palm fruit digester, oil clarifier, palm nut cracker, multi crop thresher, rice miller, grinding mill, fermentation rack, shea nut crusher, shea butter kneader, milling machine, garbage push truck, solid waste container (open and closed), et cetera.

The Committee noted these products have high potential in spurring SME industrial growth in the country and also for export to the vast West African market and beyond. While recommending increased attention to the needs and capacities of the Foundation from the Ministries of Environment and Science and Trade and Industry as well as Food and Agriculture, there were some basic house-keeping that needed to be done by

GRATIS.

The issue of standard is one such primary concern. The Committee found that even though the standard (laid out by GSB) for food processing machines was stainless steel, GRATIS had been developing processors not of stainless steel quality.

The Committee also urge a re- engineering of the operations of the Foundation and the NBSSI to promote better collaboration and effectiveness.

The Committee noted further that the Foundation, when properly harnessed, could be a bedrock of a homegrown industrial revolution that will positively impact on the rural economy of Ghana. In this direction the Committee was happy to note that Government is alive to this possibility and intends setting up a machine building industry with Chinese assistance.

6.6 Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB)

The GFZB needs recapitalisation to

Mr. Dan K. Abodakpi (NDC - Keta)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion on the floor and to say that the House should unanimously approve the budget allocated to the Ministry even though we indeed, expressed serious reservations at the Committee's meeting that the requested budget and what has been given to the Ministry for its planned programme for the year is going to be seriously undermined.
Mr. Speaker, I would want to state that whilst appreciating the effort that the Ministry has made in consolidating all existing trade policies into one document, we should not say that this is the first time a trade policy has been developed for this country. That is not correct; there have been trade policies. What has been done is to put them all together in a nice brochure and the inaugural performance done by the President, giving colour and importance to the Ministry; and that one we appreciate. But there have been trade policies in this country, which I am sure

Mr. Kwame Osei-Prempeh (NPP - Nsuta/Kwamang/Beposo)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion on the floor and in doing so to make some few observations.
My first observation is on the Trade Fair Authority. The Report says that ever since it was turned into a limited liability company it has made several requests for annual government support. Mr. Speaker, I believe that this is a misplaced statement. The purpose of making or turning some corporations into limited liability companies was to make them operate like companies.
The Ghana Trade Fair Authority has enormous assets, which it can use as a collateral to secure loans. It has to operate like any private enterprise, so if it sits
down and wants Government's annual subvention, like a government department or organization, I believe that they are not being proactive enough. They should use the resources that they have -- and they have been engaged in more fairs -- so that they can repay any loans that they should contract.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that if they still sit down and allow the resources that they have to go waste, waiting for Government's subvention, it may never come and the Ghana Trade Fair Authority may collapse. If you go there, you see that there is deterioration in most of the facilities there. Mr. Speaker, I believe that they do not have to sit down and wait until manna falls from the Government.

Mr. Kojo Armah

On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member said that the Trade Fair Authority should go for loans using the enormous assets they have as a collateral. I remember I heard the hon. Minister saying that since the Trade Fair Authority was established they have not had title to the land, and I believe without title to the land they cannot use the land even for collateral, to get loans. If I heard the Minister right, that should correct the impression that the hon. Member is trying to give to this House.

Mr. Osei-Prempeh

Mr. Speaker, that itself is untenable for anybody to say that Ghana Trade Fair Authority has existed up to this time without title to the land. Mr. Speaker, it is untenable. I believe that anybody who has had anything to do with that must be sanctioned. If it has existed all these years without any title to the land

Alhaji M. M. Mubarak (NDC - Asawase)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion and in doing so, I would want to state that if you look at the presentation of the Minister, you would quickly assume almost all our problems are over. But I would wish to state that the Minister must move a little step ahead than his broad presentation.
If you look at the presentation, it is not time bound. We have a situation in this country where we read very beautiful documents; we say very nice things but then when it comes to implementation, then we run far behind. I am saying this in connection with the just-ended “Farmers Day”, that is on Friday. I was there, in my metropolis, and the Second National Best Farmer for 2005 said that there was a fund. I did not know which fund it was that was meant for farmers; and it is supposed to be a five-year rolling credit support.
For two years, they have done almost every paperwork that has to do with this assessment and yet, up to now, they have not been able to access this credit facility. Then I asked myself: With the presentation that the Minister made this morning, to what extent can we guarantee that almost all that he has said, come next year, at least, he may take the pain to come and tell us that out of the ten things that he promised, six of them have been achieved and maybe, he is left with four? But we may never hear or see the Minister here again, and we may only assume that these things have been done.
Mr. Speaker, I would also want to draw the attention of the Minister to page nine of the Committee's Report on the issue of the Small and Medium-Enterprise Bank. We all remember that in this country we set up organizations to do one thing only for them to start doing another thing. The most unfortunate thing and a typical example is the rural banks. When they were set up, they had a function to perform and specifically, they were supposed to be at the rural end. Today, we see them in the big cities and they are operating just like the commercial banks.
I would urge the Minister to take note of this and make sure that should this bank come into operation, it will perform the function that it is set up to perform, so that it does not jump into the commercial market and begin to behave as though it is a commercial bank.
Mr. Speaker, another very important thing I would want to draw the attention of the Minister or the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning to, is on page five. If you look at the Budget Estimates for the small-scale industry, you will see that they have just about 55 per cent of what they really needed. This is very unfortunate because we are very much aware that in Ghana, small-scale and medium-scale enterprises employ the chunk of our people and if their budgets could be cut so much, it clearly shows that our trade and industry will have a big challenge in helping the small-scale and medium- scale to be able to survive the vigorous marketing in Ghana.
The last but not least, Mr. Speaker, I am also very surprised that the whole Budget that we saw this year did not place much emphasis on the poultry industry, when we know that we banned the importation

Mr. Francis A. Agbotse (NDC - Ho West)

Mr. Speaker, mine is just a little observation on the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF). I have seen that there is provided in the Budget information that the law will be reviewed so that non-export companies would access the money. The problem is that even the export companies, companies which are ready to export, are not able to access the money.
So there is the need for a thorough review of the law because when we were passing this law in this House, it was viewed as a National Democratic Congress (NDC) law which would favour NDC members and functionaries, and because of that strict assessment values have been put in the law. I can see the Senior Minister who was an advocate of giving all the money to the commercial banks, so that the liability for recovery should be put on the commercial banks

Mr. Dan Abodakpi

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I was the Minister who brought this law to the House. Because of the experiences we had with Business Assistance Fund, we introduced lots of safeguards into this law. It was not because on the floor of this House it was seen in partisan terms.

Mr. Agbotse

Mr. Speaker, those safeguards are making it very difficult for the money to be accessed; that is my point. And I am saying that if we are bringing it for review, we must bring it for a total review because the people it is meant for are not even benefiting from it.
With that, I support the Estimates.

Mr. C. K. Humado (NDC - Anlo)

Mr. Speaker, I also rise to support the motion on the floor moved by the Minister for Trade and Industry and in so doing just to make two observations.
The first observation is on price competitiveness as well mentioned by the hon. Minister. It is my view that in order to achieve price competitiveness for our export products throughout the length and breadth of this country, we need to improve transport systems particularly in the northern hub of the country. The cost of exports presently works against those exporters who are far away from the ports that we have in Accra, Tema and Takoradi.
If we move into the growth and poverty reduction stage, as we are expanding our exports, there is the need to release pressure on the existing ports by improving a transport hub, let us say for the north, in Tamale. If we do that, we can also move most of the regulatory agencies to the north so that farmers and exporters in
those areas of the country would find it cheaper to export directly from the airport in Tamale to Europe and the United States.
These days a lot of business takes place, particularly for perishable products, from airport to airport; and if we want poverty reduction in those areas of the country, then we need to improve the transport facilities to international standards so that perishable commodities can also move from the northern areas straight to markets in Europe and the United States.

My second and last observation is on the conflict between the various regulatory agencies. Mr. Speaker, it is an area I have also looked at in my previous work and I just wish to urge the hon. Minister that this requires an inter-ministerial action because the various agencies are under various Ministries - Ministry of Health, Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Ministry of Trade and Industry. Just tackling one of them and leaving the others will not remove the conflict.

I, therefore, urge the hon. Minister in approaching this issue to collaborate with other Ministries and have an inter- ministerial action, which will permanently resolve this conflict among the various regulatory agencies.

With these few observations, I also support the motion.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Minister for Trade and Industry, you may wish to wind up.

Mr. Alan Kyeremateng

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to express the appreciation of my Ministry for the very valuable comments and the inputs that have been provided by hon. Members.
An hon. Member who also is a member of the Select Committee, having been previously the hon. Minister for Trade and Industry, obviously, has a lot of experience and exposure in this particular industry so we always welcome and value his comments.
There are many other suggestions that have come up but which for lack of time I would not be able to respond to, but I would like to take all of them on board and in particular, with respect to realigning the functions of my Ministry and that of the Private Sector Development Ministry. I think this is a major task that confronts us.
The hon. Member once again said that trade is development and development is trade. So we hope that we would be able to execute many of the programmes that we have outlined for the Ministry.
Question put and motion agreed to.
Resolved:
That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢217,613 million for the services of the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker

Majority Leader, do you have any presentations?

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, I thought with the ringing of the bell we would have had all hon. Colleagues in so that we could start with the Resolutions. But whilst waiting for them, if we can take item 13.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Deputy Minority Whip, do you have any point of order?

Mr. E. T. Mensah

On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that it is a motion, but in moving the motion the hon. Senior Minister indicated that he is raising a huge question mark on the proposal itself. So I was going to listen to him, when I heard that the appropriation for the programme that the President will present to this House for the rest of the year, which is a constitutional intervention, is something that is hanging on this paper. It means that this paper would have to be withdrawn and re-presented some other time. I do not see the indecent haste in raising a question mark and yet putting this through.

Mr. J. H. Mensah

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, life moves in a way that it is not always possible to follow logical sequences. When the present Budget was being formulated, the basis of most of the thinking was GPRS I. GPRS I was addressed mostly to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). At the same
time, the Planning Commission was producing GPRS II. Now, GPRS II is where we are beginning to define the new development perspectives of the country.
Therefore, the position I was going to make which, perhaps, my hon. Friend has anticipated a bit, is that for policy in all government departments and agencies to fully reflect a new paradigm of development -- a new objective of policy, which is to push Ghana forward to the status of a middle-income country -- then we need to have a thorough review of many, many agencies and Ministries programmes.
For instance, Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Education and Sports. We have stated that we think human resource development is at the root or foundation of any hope of attaining middle-income status. And the Government has produced a White Paper on education which will supplement the old Ministry of Education and Sports' sector programme.
Now, that programme of reforming the sector programme is going to take time and therefore, the fact that we have written a GPRS II must only mean that we are beginning a process and that process would hopefully be progressively reflected in the programmes and policies of Ministries and agencies. That is why I said that the Committee's Report does not reflect this. And so, wilily nilly, we are going to have to come back to the House to approve a much more extensive programme of planning, a replanning than it is envisaged in the present appropriations. That is why I put the question mark over the appropriations themselves.
But in the time being, the envelope of resources available to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning only enables it to make provision for work

Chairman of the Committee (Mrs. Grace Coleman)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to second the motion and also to present the Report of the Committee.
1.0 Introduction
The 2006 Annual Estimates of
the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) was laid in the House on Thursday, 10th November 2005 and referred to the Finance Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the Constitution and Standing Orders of the House.
This followed the presentation of the 2006 Financial Policy of the Government by the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, hon. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, for the year ending 31st December, 2006.
The Committee met with the Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, officials from Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and NDPC and reports as follows:
2.0 Background
The National Development Planning Commission exists to advise and assist the President to attain his development vision through the effective formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies that makes the Economic growth and development of the nation.
3.0 Objectives
The objectives of the Commission are as follows among others:
to study and analyze macro-economic and structural reform options;
to make proposals for the protection of natural and physical environment;
to make proposals for the development of multi-year rolling plans, taking into consideration the resource potential and comparative advantage of the
different districts of Ghana;
t o co -o rd ina t e and f ac i l i t a t e implementation of specific national programmes and projects;
to harmonize national development plan and facilitate effective imple- mentation;
t o m o n i t o r a n d e v a l u a t e t h e implementation of Medium-Term Development Policy (MTDP) at national, regional and district levels;
to establish national database to enhance effective policy decision- making.
4 .0 2006 Budget Es t imates o f the Nat iona l Deve lopment Planning Commission
For the pursuance of the above-stated objectives, the sum of ¢40,487 million has been allocated to the Commission for the 2006 financial year. The breakdown is presented below: Personal Emoluments

Mr. Lee Ocran (NDC -- Jomoro)

Mr. Speaker, whilst I support the motion on the floor, I have some few comments to make.
First, the hon. Senior Minister quoted article 36 (5) of the Constitution to back his subsequent request for more resources to present a comprehensive plan for the development of the nation; that is a constitutional obligation on His Excellency the President. As he quoted, two years after coming into office, he should present such a plan.
But Mr. Speaker, in fulfilment of the same clause in the Constitution, Vision 2020 was presented as another plan for the development of this country. But after the coming into force of the current Government, Vision 2020 was shelved. What is the need to present another plan? And in three years time, they will not be sitting where they are; they will be here and we will be there, and their plan will also be thrown overboard.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Member, do you have any point of order to raise?

Mrs. Coleman

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member is misleading this House.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Member for Jomoro, please continue.

Mr. Ocran

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear from my hon. Lady. It is - [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Member, continue.

Mr. Ocran

But Mr. Speaker, if they were to have a plan that will stand the test of time, that plan should be acceptable to both sides of the House. It should be a bipartisan plan and by all Ghanaians so that any government that comes in will have to continue with the implementation of that plan.
Of course, there can be few changes depending on the times and the situations that we find ourselves in. Yes, but this idea of having a plan which will be jettisoned after a new government has come into office, is really not helping us; and it is a mere waste of resources. I think the hon. Senior Minister would take that into consideration when he is trying to request for more money.
With these few comments, Mr. Speaker, I support the motion on the floor of the House.
Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning (Prof. G. Y. Gyan- Baffour): Mr. Speaker, I have a bone of contention to pick up with my hon. Friend. The Vision 2020 was a twenty-five-year document, and the first step of it was from 1995 to 2000. So when we came into power, that first step had elapsed; so there is nothing to say that we did not use the Vision 2020.

Mr. Samuel Sallas-Mensah (NDC - Upper West Akim)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion on the floor, and in doing so I would want to raise a technical issue about the work of the National

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin)

Mr. Speaker, let me say that we would have benefited much if actually the hon. Senior Minister had been part of the deliberations of the Committee. He seems to have given some different perspectives from what is presently captured in the report and, in fact, the Budget Statement that was presented to the House.
Mr. Speaker, I have similar concerns as have been raised by my Colleagues. Actually, article 36 (5) enjoins all Presidents to present comprehensive programmes towards the development of this nation. And truly, in 1995, when the first step of Vision 2020 came before this House, it was debated and approved.
Definitely, the Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, responsible for Economic Planning, is
aware that the first step of Vision 2020 was carved out of the National Development Framework and that projected Ghana's development for twenty-five years. The concern that I would express is the fact that that framework was rejected in 2001 and then the new Government carved out a document, which came out in 2003, which was also termed the Economic and Financial Development of Ghana - 2003 to 2012. That was the programme that His Excellency the President presented.
But unfortunately, from even the speeches of His Excellency the President and other documents that came before this House and the whole nation, there are serious contradictions as to Government's commitment to that programme. In fact, in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II), we are being given different targets and that is why there is the urgent need for co-ordination, for synchronization of government programmes to let us have a national vision.
Because of the lack of a national vision, it is like we are groping in darkness and I thought, Mr. Speaker, that the National Development Planning Commission would be restricted to giving the planning input, whether it is economic or physical planning, to the President. And I thought that was what was envisaged in the 1992 Constitution, but the economic planning has been hived off to the Ministry of Finance.
The previous Government listened to the debates of this House and it was because of the wisdom of this House that the economic planning aspect was carved out from that Ministry and it was made only Ministry of Finance. I do not know what has informed the shift -- and in fact the NDPC is like a department now under a Ministry. I think that it is not being given its full constitutional mandate and we would have to look at it.

Mr. Speaker, I would love that my hon. Colleagues in government bring to this House some of these major policy

shifts; sometimes we hear them talk about changes of nomenclature of Ministries. Mr. Speaker, there is no law governing the creation of Ministries, the formation of Ministries and that kind of thing. But people just go and you can change -- Where is my good Friend, hon. Dr. Anane? He can change from Roads and Transport to Road Transport -- just changing the names, changing every name.

I think that it is important that we bring these things up and that an Executive Instrument be published. That is what is required by the law. [An hon. Member: No, you did not do it before you left.] [Interruption.]

Papa Owusu-Ankomah

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Minister, I believe, nobody has called you to speak, I am sorry -- [Laughter.]

Papa Owusu-Ankomah

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I must apologise for not waiting for you to recognise me.
Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. Minority Leader is misleading the House. He made the point that when designations of Ministries are changed, Executive Instruments ought to be published. I can say that Executive Instruments are always published; even for the latest one, Water Resources, Works and Housing, an Executive Instrument has been published. [Interruptions.] When an Executive Instrument is published, it is published in the Gazette; we do not lay an Executive Instrument.

Mr. Bagbin

Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. Minister for the Interior is aware that the Executive Instrument that was published dealt with Roads Transport; it did not deal with Road Transport Ministry. He can crosscheck, it is not me saying it; it is they using the terms; it is not me. What we have now is Road Transport,

Mr. Speaker

Senior Minister, you may wish to wind up.

Mr. J. H. Mensah

Mr. Speaker, let me thank our hon. Colleagues for their contributions and useful perceptions. I just want to comment on two aspects. Number one, Mr. Speaker, the existence of the NDPC derives from article 86 onwards of the Constitution and naturally, no legislation -- no subsidiary legislation can supersede the authority and ambit of those
provisions of the Constitution and, indeed, the NDPC Act is a derivative of those constitutional provisions of article 86.
Mr. Speaker, if there is going to be any contradictions and confusions, I think we owe it to the House to clear them up and I hope that whatever it is required, the Leadership requires us to do, we will try and do.

Mr. Speaker, the second matter is this

my hon. Friend, the Member for Jomoro (Mr. Lee Ocran) actually did not seem to have appreciated the import of much of what I had said. Mr. Speaker, a nation does not stand still if it is going to get anywhere; a nation moves and moves on the basis of new ideas. So for the National Development Planning Commission to freeze itself into the ideas of either 1995 or 2000 or even of 2005 will be contrary to what is required and Parliament should keep up with the National Development Planning Policy as a living process that evolves.
The other aspect of what I said was that, however, there are some broad development parts which ought to be adopted and held by the full country; and I do not say the government side or the opposition side in Parliament, but by the whole country. And I said if the whole country does not come to believe that Ghana will become a middle-income country, then Ghana will not become a middle-income country. It is only when we all subscribe to and hold a sort of development ideology that we can hope to attain ambitious goals; and we are poor but we do not need to be poor. And for that reason the targets that we set for our development need to be ambitious.

It is no use being in government, and setting targets that are not easily attained. That would be ambitious and it will be difficult and because it would be difficult, that is why we need to mobilize the nation

in earning the objectives of policy.

Mr. Speaker, let me repeat what I said; we distributed copies of the GPRS II to all Members, I believe, long before the budget debate started. But for reasons of time- tabling - [Interruptions] - We sent copies to this House and wanted the committee responsible to admit before Parliament resumed in October but it was not possible to find the time.

However, once Parliament came into Session, we had to let the budget process take precedence. But we come back and then engage the House, and I think that the House would take part in giving leadership to the nation in adopting and implementing an ambitious process of national development.

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move.

Question put and motion agreed to.

Resolved:

That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢40,487 million for the services of the National Development Planning Commission for the 2006 fiscal year.

Minister for Road Transport (Dr. Richard W. Anane)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢3,665,844,000,000 for the services of the Ministry of Road Transport for the 2006 fiscal year.
Mr. Speaker, approval of these estimates would enable the Ministry and the following subvented agencies to render
services to the State. The subvented agencies under the Ministry are: the Department of Feeder Roads (DFR), the Department of Urban Roads (DUR), the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA), the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Ghana Technical Training Centre (GTTC) and the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC).

Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Road Transport has the following objectives

provision of transport infrastructure and services at minimum cost th roughout the count ry for accelerated economic growth, especially in the agricultural, industrial, trade and services sectors whilst ensuring cost recovery;
reviewing existing and developing new policies, regulations and laws that conform to changing trends and need of the transport infrastructure and services of the country;
developing and implementing an equitable and integrated transport network programme in support of socio-economic development of the nation;
strengthening the institutional capacities in the management of the transport system in the country; and
instituting standards to ensure safety, reliability and efficiency of transport system to meet national and international requirements.
Also included in our objectives are ensuring sustainable funding for the road and transport sector programmes; and progressively improving transport infrastructure and services to deprived areas to reduce the incidence of poverty as well as identifying and instituting measures which provide private sector

Mr. Speaker, the department will embark therefore, on the following activities

routinely maintaining about 27,700 km of roads, rehabilitate about a
thousand, one hundred and ten kilometres of roads and undertake spot improvement and sectional regravelling of our roads.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Feeder Roads will continue with its tarring programme and surface about two hundred and twenty-seven kilometres of roads and reconstruct twenty kilometres of roads in the Afram Plains.
Mr. Speaker, because of the constraints of rivers making it difficult to link parts of this country, the bricks projects which have been embarked upon would also be continued in the course of the year.
Mr. Speaker, as more municipalities are created the assets, and therefore the responsibilities of the Department of Urban Roads, will commensurably increase. In spite of the efforts of the department, the road condition mix continues to show only marginal positive changes because of these new additions.
The Department of Urban Roads programme for 2006 will, therefore, focus on the completion of major rehabilitation and reconstruction projects which have already started. This will comprise routine maintenance, minor rehabilitation and upgrading of large gravel roads and fill paved roads in the Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies where the Department of Urban Roads is operating.
Mr. Speaker, the safety of our travelling public is also paramount in the activities of the Ministry of Road Transport and safety agencies. Mindful of the African Road Safety Objective of achieving a twenty-five per cent reduction in road traffic fatality by 2010, Ghana will remain focused in addressing road safety issues to achieve its national target of a single digit by 2015. As part of this process, Ghana has developed a Road Safety and
Action Plan as a broad policy framework to achieve its targets; and this has been implemented over the last four or five years.
Mr. Speaker, these a re be ing implemented with the collaboration of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, National Road Safety Commission, the BRRI, MTTU of the Ghana Police Service and the other road agencies.
Mr. Speaker, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) will undertake major activities in the 2006 fiscal year, by continuing with the new regimes of servicing drivers' licences so that we have the right people behind the steering wheel, and improve upon the certification process and the coverage of certification so that we shall have roadworthy vehicles as we continue to roll out our rehabilitation of the road network.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority will also start the re-registration of motor-cycles to reduce proliferation of fake licences in the system. And all these activities would be enabled by promulgation as has been done by this august House of the Road Traffic Law of 2004 and the opera-tionalisation of the regulations of this law.

Mr. Speaker, the National Road Safety Committee would also continue on its activities of first recruiting the batch of regional road safety co-ordinators for the five new regional offices. It will also continue with its intensification of road user education and publication for the benefit of the society and towards the reduction of accidents and fatalities on

Mr. E. K. Salia (NDC - Jirapa)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to contribute to the motion on the floor and I wish to indicate at the first instance, that I am supportive of this motion to approve an amount of ¢3,665,844,000,000 being the total budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Road Transport.
Mr. Speaker, transportation is indeed, a major input in any nation's development and truly, the economy of this country is currently negatively affected by the high cost of transportation in the movement of various goods from places of production to places of consumption and to our ports. It is therefore, in this respect that I wish to argue that it is time even to give the Ministry of Road Transport more money because on its efforts hinge our national vision and development. Without efficient transportation systems, this country cannot be competitive on the international market.
Mr. Speaker, at this point, let me say that my major concern is in respect of the non-completion of various road sector projects that have been ongoing for several years. I am sure that there is no Member of Parliament here who will not point to a road project that has either been abandoned or work on it is so slow that they have tended to forget when it will ever be completed. Mr. Speaker, if there is anyone, I beg that person to show that in that constituency every road project that has been started has been completed on schedule.

Mr. Speaker, the situation is so serious that I believe it is based on two reasons

One, the Ministry appears to be over- stretching itself by attempting to do too many projects at the same time. And, number two, the contractors who are now executing most of those works do not

have adequate capacity to effectively and efficiently execute those projects. So in view of these two problems, I think that the Ministry needs to do something to resolve the problem so that we can benefit early from the execution of these projects.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that if the projects are too small and the contractors are given such small jobs, the profitability of that particular operation is normally suspect. That is why a lot of contractors pick one job in one region and go to other regions to also execute jobs and as a result they are so spread out that they cannot execute any of those projects effectively.

Mr. Speaker, time has come for us to take a new look at the construction industry. Indeed, it is one of the sectors that is privately run in this country. I do not believe that there is any government construction organization these days. So if the private sector is the engine of growth, I believe that the construction industry needs more support than it is currently getting. Without the necessary support most of our efforts will be in vain because jobs will be awarded and contractors will not execute them and therefore, the benefits that are supposed to accrue from the completion of those projects will never be realized.

Mr. Speaker, I think that if we take a couple of contractors in every region, for instance, if every region would have three major good contractors and they are allowed to operate in those regions, and they are equipped and supported, I believe that most of the works will be executed on time and efficiently. But at this stage, I know that in some regions there is hardly any good contractor to talk about. I therefore want to urge my hon. Colleague, the hon. Minister for Road Transport, to do all he can in his power to at least equip

department. I believe that it is de- motivating for an individual to act for six years without being confirmed and I think that the time has come for him to take a look at it and confirm him.

I know that there are all sorts of claims that he was appointed by the former Government and therefore he must be all sorts of things; that has nothing to do with it. He just was a staff who was posted there and he happens to be doing fairly well. I believe that the time has come to confirm him and that is the only fair thing to do to that particular person.

Mr. Speaker, when you hear the budget of the Ministry of Road Transport -- ¢3,665,844,000,000, people would want to say that this is a lot of money. But if you look at what they do, I do not think that this money can do much, particularly as far as our trunk roads are concerned. When His Excellency the President said each of the 10 regions would have, at least one road project for the region, we were all very gratified and hoped that it will be the case. The truth is that at least there are three regions now where virtually no work is going on, on any of their major roads.

I believe that the time has come for us to be faithful to His Excellency the President's vision or objective of having every region have a reasonable length of road done by the Ministry.

Mr. Speaker, the regular arguments that it is the contractors' fault is not something that we should all agree. It is unfortunate that my hon. Colleague knows -- unless things have changed -- that the hon. Minister for Road Transport really has very little to do with the choice of those who execute the works because contrary to popular opinion, the hon. Minister for Road Transport does not award contracts.

To the best of my knowledge, I was not a member of any tender board and I never say, “This road project should go there”. I do not know whether the circumstances have changed. If they have changed, maybe, then my hon. Colleague is a little more powerful than I was. But if the situation is still the same, it means that it is the awarding authorities, that is, the various District Chief Executives, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives and the Regional Ministers who select the contractors, and they are the ones, I believe, my hon. Colleague should liaise with and advise them on the choice of some of those contractors.

But the unfortunate thing is that the classification system of contractors appears to have broken down completely. I think the entry requirements to the industry have been so lowered and degraded that virtually anybody who wants to be a contractor becomes one. I do not know whether it was a strategy, but as a result of that the quality of construction has been diluted in this country and I would urge my hon. Colleague to take a serious view of this so that they can re-establish the classification system that would produce contractors who are worth their salt and not just anybody who can get a licence.

With these few words, I would like to

Mr. Speaker

Please, wind up.

Mr. Salia

Mr. Speaker, the hon.
Minister for Road Transport also has an

Mr. P. C. Appiah

None

Asikuma/Odoben/Brakwa): Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.

It appears to me that in Ghana we talk big and do very little. It has escaped us that the road transport is the key to national development. Without the roads, foodstuffs cannot come from the hinterlands into the city to enable us to get food to eat. Without the roads, Mr. Speaker, our exports cannot reach the harbour to enable us to generate foreign exchange. Without the road transport, our imports cannot reach their various destinations to enable us to produce goods and services to generate wealth for the country.

Without the road transport, workers cannot go to work and back home, and even without the road transport, the sick cannot go to hospital, neither can the dead be buried. [Hear! Hear!] This is the Ministry which is denied adequate resources to prosecute its programmes and therefore, we remain the same as it was.

Mr. Speaker, last year, the budget for the Ministry of Road Transport, the Headquarters, was ¢13.5 billion but as at the end of September, the Ministry had been given ¢271 million for capital expenditure. Feeder roads - The budget was ¢18.8 billion but as at the end of

September, when we looked at this document, the Feeder Roads Department had not accessed even a cedi.

But in the Ghana Poverty Reduction S t ra tegy (GPRS) document , the Department of Feeder Roads is charged with the responsibility of assisting the rural folks to access special markets, but if the Department of Feeder Roads will not be given money, then the rural folks would be locked up there and their poverty would be exacerbated.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Urban

Roads was supposed to have been given ¢6.6 billion but at the end of September, not even a cedi has been given to it.

Now to the DVLA -- As the Chairman said, DVLA generates revenue. As at the end of September it has generated ¢47 billion. It was allocated ¢7.9 billion for capital expenditure but as at September it has been given ¢971 million.

Let us go to the National Road Safety Commission. Its budget was ¢1 billion but at the end of September, it had got zero per cent. Can you succeed with this? Can a country develop with this?

Mr. Speaker, my prayer is that within the next year the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning would come here with a supplementary budget to boost the allocation of funds to the road sector. If this fails, this beautiful budget, the “Budget of Good News” would turn out to be a “Budget of Bad News”.

Thank you very much. Mr. Kenneth Dzirasah (NDC - South

Tongu): Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this motion and in so doing, I would like to draw the hon. Minister's attention to one area within his Ministry that has received very little attention. In fact, I even consider it a misnomer now that his Ministry is Ministry for Road Transport

for him to be responsible for water transport which he runs under the auspices of the Ghana Highway Authority.

I believe that it is about time the Ministry divested its interest in water transportation in the Lower Volta Basin so that probably, Railways, Ports and Harbours, or even the various District Assemblies that benefit from the operation of the ferry can take up the responsibility to organise and run that transportation system more efficiently.

Mr. Speaker, I have cited here time without number that because of the peculiar geographical structure of the Lower Volta Basin which is divided into two big halves by the Volta River, communities which otherwise would have been together have been separated and there are paramountcies that belong to two separate District Assemblies. The closest and the most obvious means by which they can relate is through the river transport.

Unfortunately, the Ghana Highway Authority does not operate this river transport efficiently. We have had cause here to request that rather than put the programme of operating the river transport under the HIPC benefits, the Ministry should come up with an Instrument to fix appropriate charges so that passengers can pay economic rates to be transported from one point to the other. We say this because that is the voice of our people. It is cheaper. Even if the present transportation costs are doubled, it is still cheaper for us to travel by the river than to go by road.

So I am praying that this time round, my hon. Friend, the hon. Minister would hear our plea and to respond favourably by entering into some kind of nego-tiations with the District Assemblies and lease out the operation of these river crafts to the

District Assemblies. There are six districts that benefit from the use of the river as a means of transport and if they put their resources together, they can regularly maintain these ferries, fuel them to enable the people benefit from the opportunities that are available with the use of the river.

Mr. Kwabena A. Okerchiri (NPP - Nkawkaw)

Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak to the motion.
Mr. Speaker, one cannot help but take pride at the attempt by the Ministry of Road Transport to reduce the rate of fatalities on our roads. Mr. Speaker, it is very refreshing to note that the Ministry has identified those death spots on our roads. At least when I am travelling to my constituency, one of them is very prominent - Potroase.
It claims a number of lives and they have named such six spots all over the country and I think that they are really working at it to make sure that those places are no longer the prominent death spots that we know. Mr. Speaker, I can see about three of them that I travel on. The place is either very hilly with a very sharp gradient or the curve is so sharp.
Mr. Speaker, I really wonder that we have travelled quite a lot, by the kind courtesy of this political dispensation. At least, some of us have travelled and you would hardly see roads that are of such gradients -- Sharp gradients or very sharp curves. I think that our engineers must be up to the task. I think they owe it a duty to the good people of this country to apply modern techniques of road engineering to road construction in this country.
Mr. Speaker, I also do appreciate, and I think Ghanaians do generally, that a lot of effort is being made by the Road Safety Commission to educate people. Mr. Speaker, I was gladdened but shocked to hear that in spite of what we see on the
television, a lot of accidents being shown to us, rather this year and last year have seen a significant drop in the fatalities of road accidents.
Mr. Speaker, it is very ironical that we are being shown such accidents on the television and therefore, the tendency is for one to think that we are registering a lot of such fatalities. But the records do show that rather it is going down. I think that we would want to encourage the Ministry to really go on with it and never relent.
Mr. Speaker, with these few remarks, I would want to urge hon. Members to support this motion.
Mr. John Gyetuah (NPP - Amenfi
West): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the motion on the floor.
Mr. Speaker, we are all aware that better roads are a key to our development, as said by the hon. Member who spoke. But when you look at the Budget, that is page 174, number 567, it states:
“By the end of September 2005, a total 1,032 km of feeder roads were regravelled and spot improved, while 900 km of roads have been rehabilitated. A total of 56 km of roads have also been upgraded to bituminous surface.”
Mr. Speaker, when you look at the Budget, as quoted -- last year's Budget, and this year's Budget -- you would realize that certain projects are skewed towards certain regions. When you look at the examples cited over here, the 56 kilometres of feeder roads which were upgraded to bituminous surface, out of this, over 41 km kilometres were in the Ashanti Region. Mr. Speaker, why that? All the projects must be equitably
distributed. When you look at the Western Region, which is the food basket of the nation, you would see the deplorable state of the roads over there.
Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal to the hon. Minister for Road Transport to turn his eyes to the Western Region because when you go to the Western Region - in fact, in my constituency Aowin Suaman, I was very glad to hear that Aowin Suaman road, that is Enchi road, has been captured in the budget; because when you look at the quantum of cocoa and other resources that come from the area, that does not commensurate with the level of development in the area.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to appeal to the hon. Minister for Road Transport to ensure that projects are equitably distributed. And once again, because of the terrain of Western Region, that is the vegetation cover over there, the contract sum should be topped up so that contractors would accept work in the Western Region.
On this note, I support the motion.

Mr. Albert K. Obbin (NPP - Prestea/ Huni-Valley)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to also contribute to the motion to approve the Budget Estimates of the Ministry of Road Transport.
Mr. Speaker, we are all aware of the role of road transport in the development of any nation. Mr. Speaker, the sector is very, very important especially when we want to reduce poverty in our country and also reach the middle-income country as we have planned. Mr. Speaker, I am also very happy and concerned with the Com- mittee's Report at paragraph 6.1 that the Committee was not comfortable with the selection process of the Department of Feeder Roads for maintenance; but it was

Mr. Albert K. Obbin (NPP - Prestea/ Huni-Valley)

however assured that the process would be streamlined very soon.
The Committee was informed that the consultant commissioned to map out the status of all feeder roads in the country was yet to present his report. Mr. Speaker, it goes on to say that this would result in the equitable distribution of road maintenance in the country.
Mr. Speaker, if you look at the peculiar nature of the Western Region, the climatic nature, the torrential rainfall, the volume of economic activities in the region, you could see that the deterioration of the roads is very rapid. Mr. Speaker, if you also look at the economic activities in the region, the minerals development, cocoa and other things and look at the development of roads, in fact, Mr. Speaker, it is very, very sad.
Mr. Speaker, throughout the last six months, I have been looking through the Daily Graphic and if you look at the feeder roads and other things you would never see the Western Region. Even in Wassa West District, I have never seen any community in Wassa West District in the dailies as far as feeder roads are concerned. Mr. Speaker, it is very, very sad.
Mr. Speaker, the region, as we are all aware, has also contributed a lot to the economic development of -- his country -- the foodstuffs and other things. If we all feel that about sixty per cent of our total population are engaged in agriculture and are also living in the rural areas, then development of feeder roads must be taken seriously, especially, in the Western Region.
Mr. Speaker, another area which worries me is the delay by the contractors. There is a single feeder road which was
started in 2001 in my constituency, that is Aboso-Akyeboana road which ought to be tarred. It is less than ten kilometres but since 2001, that road has not been completed; and it is also a very worrying situation.

Mr. Speaker, since the hon. Minister for Road Transport is here, I will also urge him that as we are moving into 2006, Western Region and for that matter, those in especially the northern part of the region should be seriously considered so that the distribution of road construction in the country will be equitable.

With these few words, I will urge all

my other Colleagues to also support the motion.

Mr. Francis Agbotse (NDC -- Ho

West): Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hand the Agenda for the year. And if you turn to Questions, seventy-five per cent of the Questions asked by hon. Members of Parliament are to the hon. Minister for Road Transport. This shows that the state of our roads is questionable.

Mr. Speaker, I am beginning to be convinced that the Ministry of Road Transport, the hon. Minister and his staff spend more time answering Parliamentary Questions than building roads. Other- wise, the Questions will not keep coming the way they are.

Mr. Speaker, there is a particular road

in my constituency -- this road runs from Sogakope in hon. Kenneth Dzirasa's constituency (South Tongu) through six different constituencies to my constituency -- called Sogakope-Ho-Fume Road. This road, we have asked several Questions on and the answer is that this road is in contention and it is before the courts, there is litigation. I am praying that in 2006, the hon. Minister and the Attorney-General will get together and take this road out of

Dr. Anane

Mr. Speaker, I wish to
express my sincere gratitude to this august House for the support that the House has shown towards the Vote for the Ministry. I also wish to assure hon. Members that the concerns that have been raised have

Dr. Anane

been appropriately noted.
Mr. Speaker, I will just take a short
period to just allay some of the concerns of the House by assuring hon. Members that yes, the Ministry of Road Transport is aware of the protraction in the execution of some projects. But the Ministry has taken note and it is aware of the fact that the protraction is predicated on the capacity of some of the contractors as well as the availability of some of the inputs. The Ministry after looking into them has taken very supportive measures and we hope that very soon the measures, which have been taken to support the industry will be evident for all to see.
The Ministry has also noted, Mr.
Speaker, the safety issues which have been a matter of worry to the nation which this House has even had the occasion to spend some time on. This has also been noted by the Ministry of Road Transport and all necessary actions are being taken to redress them.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the various
engineering corrective measures for the mal-alignments, both horizontal and vertical, other stakeholder collaborations are also being done to ensure that we have sanity on our roads. And as has been shown, it is very true that our road safety profile has been improving consistently. And even when we compare last year's road safety profile and road accident profile to this year's, there is a marked improvement.
Mr. Speaker, concerns have been raised
about the expansion of the Department of Urban Roads. It is not only the Department of Urban Roads, the Department of Feeder Roads has also been expanded. But Mr. Speaker, these are all in consonance with the country's wish to accelerate
decentralization. That notwithstanding, the Ministry is aware of the constraints and therefore, has been working to ensure that these agencies zone their activities so that their capacity may not be overstretched. So we are trying to do what activities are expected of us even within the constraints that we have by way of staff and other facilities.
Mr. Speaker, in the same vein, our road
access is also being expanded and the expansions are going on still within the constraints that we have. But Mr. Speaker, it is our duty to provide answers and we will try to do what we are expected to do within the constraints, as are shown by the financing that we are given, to make sure that our roads are motorable and that our roads are also safe for use.

Mr. Speaker, we have taken note of the concerns and especially there is one concern about water transport. I wish to assure the hon. former Deputy Speaker of the House, that we are quite aware of the fact that we are currently in charge of ensuring access to the Lower Volta Basin. Mr. Speaker, we are only doing it as a facilitatory act whilst we hope that the beneficiary Assemblies would consider coming in to support. We took this action because we are aware of the constraints of access within that corridor and that is why we are doing it.

Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the hon. former Deputy Speaker said, reports from the area show that the people have been grateful for the services, but we still think that we can do more and we want to do better than what we are doing.

Expressions of concern about equity by way of distribution of road services and projects have also been put across in the House. Mr. Speaker, I wish to assure hon. Members that this is one major activity that this sector has been trying

Mr. Speaker

Majority Leader, which is the next item?

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

If we can take
item 17, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Members, we shall
have extended Sitting. Item 17 - Minister for Communications.

Minister for Communications (Mr. A. Kan-Dapaah)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢67,762 million under the 2006 Budget Estimates of the Ministry of Communications.
Mr. Speaker, there is probably no need to emphasize that Information

Minister for Communications (Mr. A. Kan-Dapaah)

and Communication Technology (ICT) provides a foundation for building up a knowledge society to drive sustained economic growth and socio-economic development. Our preparations and achievements so far as a country, I believe, have been remarkable and in the year 2005, the Ministry did integrate the Ghana ICT Policy for Accelerated Development within the three-pronged GPRS II development strategy and we also completed the conceptual framework for an “e-Ghana Project” with funding support from the World Bank.
Additionally, Mr. Speaker, the Ministry during the year concentrated on the provision of the essential building blocks for ICT-ledgrowth, and we also developed strategies for e-governance, e-health, commerce, gender and so on and also produced a pro-investment National Telecommunications Policy.
To facilitate transactions and also prohibit unauthorized access, the first drafts of Bills covering Electronic Transactions, Computer Crimes, Data Protection, Privacy and Security were indeed prepared and reviewed at Stakeholder Fora in 2005. Currently, consultations are ongoing with the Office of the Attorney-General for the review and finalisation of the draft legislations with the view to making them consistent with the Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, the year 2005 has seen a dramatic improvement in the telecom- munications infrastructure in the country as a result of vigorous and fair market competition. This has led to improved access to information and communication services.
Mr. Speaker, for instance, the cumulative teledensity for October 2005 for Ghana Telecom and the other mobile cellular providers rose to 2,694,363 million customers (including 11,037 pay phones) from 1.6 million at the end of 2004. This brings the current teledensity
to 13.5 per cent of Ghana's population of 20 million.
Similarly, Mr. Speaker, there has been tremendous increase in the Capital Expenditure Programmes of the various Telephone companies indicating the favourable investment climate in the sector.
On Boardband, Mr. Speaker, from a figure of 1,024 broadband lines in 2004, GT in 2005 delivered 8,600 broadband connectivity to businesses and also to homes to facilitate quick delivery of Internet-based products and services. It is projected that the figure will rise to something close to 20,000 in the year
2006.
Mr. Speaker, in 2006 the Ministry of Communications will pursue a number of e-Ghana indicative programmes aimed at supporting concrete initiates in our IT-led socio-economic development.
Mr. Speaker, in 2006 a major investment activity to be undertaken by the Ministry would be the construction of a centralized data centre/offices and the development of a secondary data centre with disaster management and data recovery facilities to enhance security of information and data.
On e-Government Applications/ Public Private Partnership, Mr. Speaker, following the successful implementation of the GCNet IT System, a PPP project supporting revenue generation of CEPS, in 2006, under the e-Ghana Project, a component will focus on rolling-out e-Government applications using Public Private Partnership (PPP) to modernize and improve selected government services. Potential government services identified are business registration, land registration, vehicle registration, revenue mobilization, immigration services,
payroll and e-procurement services.
On universal access Mr. Speaker, Ghana Investment Fund for Telecom- munication (GIFTEL) is now operational and will commence network roll-out to the rural areas from 2006.
On national communication backbone, Mr. Speaker, I want to report that the Government is aware that the ICT market in Ghana is keen to see the Voltacom assets to enable further development of services and roll-out of services to areas not currently served. The Voltacom fibre network is seen as the only national network resource, which will not suffer from bandwidth limitations in the near future and as the logical foundation on which to build a more extensive national optical fibre network.
The Ministry has vigorously pursued the transformation of the Voltacom utility into a separate first class National Communications Backbone Company to oversee the management and also extension of the fibre optic from the southern sector to the northern sector so as to blanket the entire country with the fibre optic and also serve the subregion.
In 2006 we hope to conclude discussions on soft funding arrangements to undertake this project and wire up the entire country.

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to indicate that under the micro, small and medium-enterprises project the World Bank is funding the construction of an ICT centre at the Free Zones Enclave in Tema to support industrial growth, and development and construction work will definitely start in January next year.

Again Mr. Speaker, the United Nations has announced that Ghana has been selected under the United Nations Project on national partnerships on new emerging technologies for sustainable development to benefit from an establishment of a science and technology platform. This project will be sited at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and this will be pursued in

2006.

Mr. Speaker, Ghana has entered a phase of accelerated development over the past three years with real GDP growth averaging 5.2 per cent. We believe to further boost the growth of the economy, recognition must be given to the potential of ICT as an effective tool to propel multi-sectoral growth. The Ministry of Communications has allocated an aggregate of ¢67.7 billion in pursuit of these objectives.

I beg to move, Mr. Speaker, that this House approves the Estimates for the Ministry of Communications for the year

2006.

Chairman of the Committee (Mr. Akwasi Afrifa)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to second the motion and also to be allowed to submit the Report of the Committee that looked into the Estimates of the Ministry.
1.0 Introduction
1.1The draft budget estimates of the Ministry of Communications for 2006 was referred to the Select Committee on Communications on 10th November 2006 for consideration and report in accordance with Standing Orders 140 (4) and 181. This followed the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government to the House by the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), hon. Kwadwo Baah-

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu (NDC - Tamale South)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion for the approval of ¢67, 762 million for the Ministry of Communications for the 2006 fiscal year. In doing so, Mr. Speaker, as you know, the world in the 21st century is driven more by information communication technology. Indeed, this Ministry has the prospect of also contributing to dealing with the growing youth unemployment in our country if they are particularly well-resourced, in order to ensure that information communication technology is made available to many Ghanaian youth.
But Mr. Speaker, in doing so, I would

Nana Akomea

On a point of order.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to point out to my good Friend that the current management of Ghana Telecom did not take over from a Ghanaian management, so he should be so guided. Thank you; Mr. Speaker. He said we could not find managers in Ghana but it is like the people took over from Ghanaian managers; they did not.

Mr. H. Iddrisu

Mr. Speaker, there
was a Ghanaian management, and I said so. I gave the statistics that in fact, as many as 27 expatriates currently work with Ghana Telecom and you know that the Government even initially advertised for strategic investors and then somersaulted a few months later into a management
contractor. That was not the principle. If you are looking for a strategic investor you ought to have done so but you later on went in for management contractor; and I am saying that we can get that expertise within this country and we should begin to make use of our own managerial potentials within this country.
Mr. Speaker, if you look at the other paragraphs, as to performance, I must say that the hon. Minister is privileged to be leading the African Ministers on Information Communication Technology (ICT) and I do hope that that will spur him on into ensuring that we have an accelerated ICT development policy. But Mr. Speaker, all the legislation, especially those dealing with cyber crimes, I think it is important that we dealt with them as soon as practicable so that the reputation - Over the years we have had some bad reportage of our country becoming the domain for internet fraud and other related issues. It is a very complex matter and I think that this honourable House must have the opportunity to legislate in dealing with internet fraud.
Mr. Speaker, in commenting further I would like to make reference to and commend the Ministry over how much funding they had secured so far for Giftel. But Mr. Speaker, it is supposed to deal with some inequities and imbalances in the provision of telephone networks, especially in rural communities, and it is important that we saw practical concrete steps being taken so that our people in Jirapa and Tumu and beyond, to Chiana, to Karaga/Gushiegu, through Dadieso and Juabeso would also have access to telephone network if it is properly implemented.
Mr. Speaker, I think that even the resources that we have approved, especially
regarding the Kofi Annan Training Institution, we need to expand it so that they will be able to train more people, so that they also will become trainers of trainers, so that many of us can benefit from the emerging advantages associated with the information technology.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on item 7.0 and then conclude my remarks on this issue; and it is about the internally generated funds (IGF) of this Ministry. We, at the committee level, had some difficulties coming to a firm conclusion as to how much was expected. If you say Meteorological Services, how much do we expect them to make as IGF for a year -- and also some reliance on the National Communications Authority (NCA) again. I think that we have to strengthen the Meteorological Services Department, especially in this era of disasters associated with bad weather and other issues.
Mr. Speaker, with this comment, I would like to urge hon. Members to vote for the release of the required funding and hope that the Minister would fast-track the development.
But finally, Mr. Speaker, there was a move by the Ministry to ensure that information communication societies were created in each district. I know that around the Sissala area one was done. I think that for each district we should begin to have those opportunities so that our young people can take advantage of ICT, not just for their personal development but also to contribute to our national development efforts.
With these few comments, Mr. Speaker, I associate myself with the motion.
Mr. A. E. Amoah (NPP - Mpohor
Wassa East): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Member for Bole/ Bamboi after you, then the Minister may wind up.

Mr. John Dramani Mahama (NDC - Bole/Bamboi)

Mr. Speaker, having been a participant in this particular sector, I think that it is most opportune that I add a few words to the passage of this particular sector's budget.
Mr. Speaker, as a result of the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the late 1990s, this sector has seen phenomenal growth and investments. Mr. Speaker, it has dramatically increased our tele-density from a little below 2 per cent to almost 10 per cent today, that is, if you add the mobile and fixed telephony together.
Mr. Speaker, the intention of the
deregulation was supposed to generate competition in order that the consumer would be the beneficiary and that is exactly what is happening. If you notice, everyday, telecom operators are cutting the cost of acquiring their start-up SIM Packs and they are in competition with each other for every single consumer.
Mr. Speaker, however, the greatest challenge that faces the industry today is disagreements in terms of inter- connection. Interconnection has two aspects: it has the technical that has to do with the kinds of equipment that they use to interconnect, and it has the issue to do with how to share the revenue that is accrued from phone calls that are made on their networks.
Mr. Speaker, currently, the war of words goes on between various operators, especially between Ghana Telecom and Spacefon, or Ghana Telecom and the Mobile Operators about how the revenue that is derived should be shared. Mr. Speaker, the optimum way of resolving this issue is that the operators themselves come to a consensus as to how they wish to share the revenue.
According to the rules and guidelines, the National Communications Authority (NCA), which is the arbiter is supposed to step in only in a situation where the public interest is threatened. And so, I think that a level head must guard the negotiations that take place.
I am informed that the operators themselves have come to a certain agreement about how to share these revenues in terms of the interconnection agreement; and I would hope that they would implement this revenue sharing agreements and cease the media war which does not help the image of any of them and would not take them anywhere, in the first place.
Mr. Speaker, I think that inter- connection should be handled in such a way that it creates a win-win situation because the telecom market is big enough for all of them. Everybody can generate enough revenue to be able to make a handsome profit to satisfy their shareholders.
Mr. Speaker, I also think that we have
come to the point where as a result of the way our telecom industry is growing, we need to do something about the Volta Com Optic Fibre Cable and the SAT III Sub Marine Optical Fibre Cable. Mr. Speaker, these are two very important projects that are key to the development of telecommunications in this country.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah

Mr. Speaker, let
me also thank hon. Members who have contributed to this debate for the very important remarks and comments that they
have made. Mr. Speaker, please, permit me to respond to one or two important issues which were raised and which need to be clarified.
To begin with, Mr. Speaker, I certainly
do share the view of the Ranking Member that there are very good reasons why the Acts that set up these institutions demand that they come up with annual reports which should be submitted to Parliament for Parliament to discuss and to exercise its supervisory role.
I do agree with the hon. Member, Mr. Speaker, that it is totally indefensible for the NCA not to have submitted their annual reports since 2003 and I want to assure my hon. Friend that we are putting all the pressure that we can to make sure that the audit is finalized as quickly as possible and the annual reports submitted to this august House as quickly as can be done.
Mr. Speaker, there was this comment about the re-nationalization of Ghana Telecom in spite of the Government's declared policy of private sector-led growth. Mr. Speaker, I believe my hon. Friend is aware of the circumstances leading to the acquisition of the shares, which were held by the Malaysians. It is the intention of the Government to sell these shares as early as possible but we need to be able to prepare Ghana Telecom, as it were, for the privatization.
We need to do this because if we do not do that, we are going to sell the asset, a very very important asset for a value which may not be good for the country. What we are in the process of doing is making sure that we repackage the company and offer it for sale. We intend to sell majority of the shares to a strategic investor; we want to sell some of the shares on the stock exchange and if shares have to be held by the Government, they will be very small. So we are in the process of preparing to offer Ghana Telecom for privatization.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah

Mr. Speaker, this question of whether we cannot get Ghanaians to manage Ghana Telecom is something that requires a full debate and I do not think it is appropriate for me to comment on it at this point in time, except to remind my hon. Friend that this is not the first time that we are having people coming from overseas to manage Ghana Telecom. The Malaysians were also managing Ghana Telecom and there must have been some very, very good reasons why the National Democratic

Congress (NDC) Government felt it necessary to bring in foreign managers, in the first place. I believe we should open this issue up for discussions at one of the committee meetings so that we will be able to address it. The issue is not something that I think we can just gloss over; and I will myself welcome a debate on it.

Mr. Speaker, there was also this issue that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government advertised for a strategic investor, then we somersaulted and brought in managers to manage the place. We simply could not have gone for a strategic investor at a time when we were fighting with the Malaysians on the value

operators sat down and came out with interconnection rates which they all said they were happy with. It so happened that the rate that they agreed upon did not solve the problem that one of the operators had complained about. As a result, in September this year, the operators sat down again and they have come up with new rates which they believe would solve the problem once and for all.

So the press war, in fact, most of the time, is based on wrong information that they had and lack of understanding of the issues involved, but I do want to repeat the advice that the hon. Member has given, that there is a need for some sanity in the area and the need for this press war to be brought to order as quickly as possible.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me also conclude by saying that the Telenor agreement is currently being assessed by the relevant bodies and that when we do have the report, the Government will be able to take whatever decision that we need to take and as hon. Mahama said, if Telenor has done well, retain them; if they have not done well, fire them. I think it is an advice which will be followed.

Thank you.

Question put and motion agreed to.

Resolved:

That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢67,762 million for the services of the Ministry of Communications for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Minister, do not be distracted.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah

Mr. Speaker, it is important for us to sell Ghana Telecom at a time when we have been able to determine what a fair value it has.
Mr. Speaker, we do agree on the importance of the cyber legislation and I want to assure this House that we are doing everything possible to make sure that the Bills are brought to this House in the first quarter of next year.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to commend the hon. Member, the former hon. Minister who is obviously well informed about some of the issues in the sector, about some of the very positive comments that he has made about the sector. I do agree with him and I also agree with my hon. Friend here about the need for us to address what seemed to be disagreements in the interconnection rates among the operators.
It is important to stress that inter- connection rates which currently are the basis of the press war are rates that are determined by the operators themselves. These rates are not determined by the National Communications Authority (NCA); these rates are not determined by the Ministry for the Government. Any question therefore of the Government or the NCA being unfair to a particular operator does not arise. These are rates that the operators themselves have come up with.
In 2003, Mr. Speaker, there was a suggestion that the interconnection rate that existed at the time was not good enough and that it was unfair to one of the operators. As a result of that, all the

Majority Leader and Chairman of the Special Budget Committee (Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢33,542 million for the services of the Electoral Commission (EC) for the 2006 fiscal year.
Mr. Speaker, I beg to move.

Mr. A. O. Aidooh

Mr. Speaker, I beg
to second the motion. Chairman of the Special Budget
Commiteee (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong): Mr. Speaker, I present the report of the Special Budget Committee with regard to the Estimates of the Electoral Commission (EC).
1.0 Introduction
The 2006 Annual Estimates of the Electoral Commission was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the 1992 Constitution and Standing Orders of the House following the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December 2006 on 10th November 2005 by the hon. Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
The Committee met with the Deputy Chairman, Mr. David A. Kangah and technical teams from the Commission and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), and reports as follows:
2.0 Background
2.1 Reference Documents
To discharge its assigned duties, the Committee availed itself of the following documents:
The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
The Standing Orders of the House.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for preceding years, notably the 2000, 2004, and 2005 financial years.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2006 financial year.
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the EC
The Electoral Commission is the constitutionally established body, the mandate of which is to deliver free, fair and transparent elections as a means of advancing the cause of democracy and good governance in Ghana.
Through a professionally competent workforce that exhibits a high sense of individual and collective integrity, it hopes to continue executing this mandate, basically by:
building trust and confidence in the electoral system;
establishing transparent and verifiable electoral processes;
educating the electorate about their rights and responsibilities as voters.
2.1 The 2006 Budget Estimates of the Electoral Commission
A total of ¢33,542,000,000.00 has been allocated to the Electoral Commission to be disbursed as follows:
Personal Emoluments
-- ¢18,594,000,000.00
Administration
-- ¢6,000,000,000.00
Service
-- ¢5,264,000,000.00
Investments
-- ¢3,684,000,000.00
Total

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu (NDC - Tamale South)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the motion, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢33,542 million for the Electoral Commission of Ghana.
Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, the Electoral Commission is a creation of the 1992 Constitution responsible for the conduct and supervision of public elections. Mr. Speaker, consistently over the years, there has always been a reduction in the request made by the Electoral Commission to the Government for its funding. Last year, they were asking for forty-one billion cedis, and the Government ended up giving them thirty-one billion cedis, citing resource constraints.
Mr. Speaker, the worrying aspect is that

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu (NDC - Tamale South)

next year, there would be District Assembly Elections conducted nation- wide, yet if you look at your Committee's report, Mr. Speaker, item 2 -- inadequate funds for services. I suppose it should be corrected there; it is not even investments. It appears that when the Electoral Commission engages the services of presiding officers and polling agents for the purpose of the District Assembly, they will have serious shortfalls in compensating them for due work done.

Mr. Speaker, that can even compromise the integrity of an election. I think that Mr. Speaker, if the hon. Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning is here, I would want to make a strong recommendation, that the Electoral Commission be considered for some HIPC resources, especially to deal with some investment issues. If you go across the country, apart from their regional offices, many of their district offices are in rented premises across the country.

Mr. Speaker, it appears that we only treat the Electoral Commission well when we know that there is a general election pending; maybe, 2004 the attitude is different, 2008, the attitude is different. Mr. Speaker, we need to adopt a new strategy to resource them consistently over the period of time so that even after the conduct of elections, the Commission must be resourced in preparedness for the next general election. But if they come with their budget and then every time we are slashing and slashing, in particular the service budget, when we know that their activities are service-related, Mr. Speaker, I think that it is not good enough.

So the hon. Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning should consider that the Electoral Commission, beyond what Parliament is approving for them today, some HIPC allocation

should be allocated to the Commission to undertake their activities. Quite apart from that, we are being told that there is some drafting of electoral laws; it requires a lot of money, especially if they are to engage consultants.

With these few comments, I support the motion and hope that some supple- mentary resources will be made available to the Commission.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Majority Leader, do you wish to say anything?

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my hon. Colleague for re-echoing some of the concerns that were expressed at the committee meeting. But as I said, it is not a question of resource allocation. I believe that the advice to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning should be to encourage them to find all other genuine means of increasing the size of the cake so that it could be shared because I still want to find out which of the sectors we need to cut, in order that we augment the funding for such an important body.
Is it Education? Is it Health or is it that of the Office of Parliament? So these are some of the problems we all need to look at, and perhaps, when we all look at how we can generate funds for the country and increase the size of the kitty, there should be no problem in its distribution.
I thank hon. Members and hope that they would support this motion so that we get the money for the Electoral Commission. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Question put and motion agreed to.
Resolved: That this honourable House
approves the sum of ¢33,542 million for the services of the Electoral Commission for the 2006 fiscal year.

Majority Leader/Chairman of the Special Budget Committee (Mr. Felix K. Owusu-Adjapong)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢53,995 million for the services of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) for the 2006 fiscal year.
Mr. Speaker, this is one of the specialised constitutional bodies and I want to crave your indulgence to get the Hansard Office to capture the contents of the report of the Special Budget Committee.
1.0 Introduction
The 2006 Annual Estimates of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the 1992 Constitution and Standing Orders of the House following the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December 2006 on 10th November 2005 by the hon. Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
The Committee met with the Chairman of the NCCE, Mr. Laary Bimi, and technical teams from both the Commission and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), and reports as follows: 2.0 Background
2.1 Reference Documents
To discharge its assigned duties, the Committee availed itself of the following documents:

Mr. O. A. Aidooh

Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion.
Question proposed.

Alhaji Amadu B. Sorogho (NDC - Abokobi-Madina)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute whilst I call on the House to approve the estimates. In doing so, I want to note that as stated in the objectives of the NCCE, it is to make sure that we sustain the political, economic and social stability of the country through constitutional democracy, and for that reason, Mr. Speaker, it is one of the very important pillars that can make sure that our democracy works.
Mr. Speaker, speaking as an old staff of the NCCE, it is sad to note that ever since the NCCE was created, it has been in rented premises and up-to-date, it cannot talk of its own structures.
Mr. Speaker, going through the estimates, one sees that twenty-five billion
cedis has been allocated as HIPC funds. It is my hope that nothing will come to create any problem where these HIPC funds may not be realized. Because Mr. Speaker, last year the NCCE could not get the amount they demanded and we did not have any huge money like twenty-five billion cedis being HIPC funds allocation to it.
Mr. Speaker, I am thinking that if we want democracy to strive, as we all wish, then it is very, very essential that we attach a lot of importance to the institutions that have been created under the Constitution to make sure that democracy comes to stay; and one of these institutions is the
NCCE.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to note that on the headquarters building, it is estimated that by the end of the year 2006, from what has been written here, it is hoped that the building would be completed by the end of the year 2006. Mr. Speaker, we are all waiting to see that great day when that building, which is named Democracy Building, can be completed.

Mr. Speaker, if we also come to the regional level, the NCCE is supposed to have regional offices as well as district offices across the country.

Mr. Speaker, as we are aware, some of the districts have increased from hundred and ten to hundred and thirty-eight. And so, Mr. Speaker, a lot more new district offices have to be created so that the new districts, which have been created, can also be adequately catered for under this dispensation.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether from the investment that is being given, cognizance is taken of these develop- ments; and I am thinking whether there is any way by which extra funding can be

raised to help the NCCE.

Mr. Speaker, as we are aware, any small problem that borders on democracy, Ghanaians are quick to point to the NCCE as not being able to educate the people well. The people are not well educated on their constitutional rights, on their democratic rights, on their civic responsibilities. And for this to happen, Mr. Speaker, it needs a lot of resources, a lot of investment would have to be made, especially in the newly-created districts. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, whilst I commend the Government for increasing their budget a little over that of last year, I still think that the work that we would want the NCCE to do, the forty-one billion as captured here may not go far.

We therefore crave the indulgence of the Ministry represented by the hon. Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning (Dr. Akoto Osei) -- I am being careful not to say Dr. Osei Akoto because he will quickly jump up -- to try as much as possible and make sure that more resources are roped from other areas to help them so that we have about three years within which to make sure that Ghanaians understand exactly what democracy means.

Mr. Speaker, we do not want to go and have those problems that we encountered during the 2004 Elections where people, even the voting system, if we count the number of wasted ballot papers -- Mr. Speaker, Ghana is moving forward and I think we should not be counting such a huge percentage ballot paper wastage. All these things come from the fact that the NCCE is not able to do their work well, to be able to educate Ghanaians to know exactly what to do when it comes to elections.

Mr. John D. Mahama (NDC -- Bole/ Bamboi)

Mr. Speaker, I just rise to support briefly the approval of the budget for NCCE.
Mr. Speaker, NCCE is a constitutional body that has been given a very important mandate to educate our citizenry on good ethics and how to grow up as responsible citizens.
Mr. Speaker, while the Commission has been doing well to be able to carry out its mandate, I think that it requires collaboration from other sectors to be able to achieve the purpose for which it was set up.
Mr. Speaker, I do remember that when we were young school children, on the school's curriculum, we had a subject - [Interruption] -- when I used to be young, we had a subject called “Civics”. And we had a Civics master who during the period will come and teach us the duties of a good citizen, how not to throw litter about the streets, how to keep good sanitation in our communities. Mr. Speaker, he tought us how to be an active citizen imbued with communal spirit, how to be a citizen who pays his taxes thankfully and dutifully.
Mr. Speaker, it is when we catch the children young and inculcate these things into them that they will grow up with those
attributes. And so, I think that the Ministry of Education and Sports has a very important role here to play. We should not just leave it to the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) so that when an election is coming up, we expect that they should come up with some education programme to teach people how to vote or if World AIDS Day is coming up, we would think that NCCE must suddenly jump up and start to educate people about how to prevent HIV/AIDS.
Mr. Speaker, I think that civic education must be a continuous process that is integrated into the curriculum of the educational system so that children right from kindergarten, as they grow up, would have a particular subject on their curriculum that teaches them their civic responsibilities as citizens of Ghana.
Mr. Speaker, I remember when we were doing the vetting, a lot of my colleague Ministers on the other side were shivering and were afraid of being asked to recite the National Pledge and the National Anthem. The few who were asked could not go beyond the first stanza. And the whole nation watched in horror as hon. Ministers were visibly shaking at the question of being asked to recite the National Pledge.
Mr. Speaker, I have looked at my son's curriculum and the subjects he learns in school and I do not see anything about civic education. There is something called life skills, where they teach them generally about the environment and sanitation and all that. But I think that this House as a body must suggest that Civics as a subject is introduced on the curriculum and the children are taught the responsibilities of a good citizen, so that when they grow up they shall not depart from it.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of useful information given and it is unfortunate the hon. Minister for Education and Sports is not around and we have finished with the budget for the Ministry of Education and Sports. But we would carry the message to him to let him recognize the need for us to review some of the topics we teach. And we used to have tropical hygiene for schools and nature study; they were all very relevant, so I agree with my hon. Colleague on this matter.
As regards the financing for the NCCE, the problem is just like the rest of the good governance bodies, these independent bodies, except that at the committee meeting, we also threw back to them the suggestion that they may not need to open district offices at every place just because it has been created as a new district, especially when we do not have the required resources and end up spreading things and they are supposed to look at it, just like some organizations which have two or three districts forming one unit.
That was aptly described by the hon. Member for Jirapa (Mr. Edward Salia) when he was cautioning against the establishment of more and more urban road offices just because it has been made an urban area. So perhaps during the year, the Special Budget Committee will meet them again and we hope that they will be able to work a strategy which will enable them to do more services rather than just transferring people to an area, two, three personnel who cannot do much for the new district.
I am happy with the advice given and I will carry the message to the institution and hope that with these favourable comments, hon. Members will support and endorse the motion for the funds requested.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Question put and motion agreed to.
Resolved:
That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢53,995 million for the services of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. A. O. Aidooh

Mr. Speaker, I second the motion.
Question proposed.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, the 2006 Annual Estimates of the National Media Commission (NMC) was referred to the Special Budget Committee for consideration and report in accordance with the 1992 Constitution and Standing Orders of the House following the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December 2006 on 10th November 2005 by the hon. Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
The Committee met the officials and technical teams from both the Commission
and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), and reports as follows:
2.0 Background
2.1 Reference Documents
To discharge its assigned duties, the Committee availed itself of the following documents:
The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
The Standing Orders of the House.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for preceding years, notably the 2000, 2004 and 2005 financial years.
The Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2006 financial year.
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the NMC
The NMC's mission, which is in consonance with the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (GPRSP), is to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the mass news media in its role as the watchdog for transparency and good governance; to achieve this, the NMC has set itself some objectives which include the following:
i . t o c o n s c i e n t i z e o w n e r s and practitioners of the Mass Media on the need to use the media to facilitate national development and cohesion;
ii. to encourage media practitioners to focus on issues of good governance and social responsibility in their reportage and programmes;

Mr. K. Osei-Prempeh (NPP - Nsuta/ Kwamang/Beposo)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the National Media Commission has a very important role to play in our constitutional dispensation. But unfortunately, I will say that of all the constitutional bodies, it is the one which is strangulated of funds.
Mr. Speaker, the National Media Commission is so impoverished that workers or skilled staff do not want to stay at the place. Over the past three years, they have had three Executive Secretaries and they have all left. the Director of Research last year left. Mr. Speaker, that is not the only thing; Commissioners who come from outside Accra do not want to serve on it.
The Ghana Moslem Mission had lawyer Kwaku Gyan, a Kumasi-based lawyer, who is very competent, very eloquent and one of the best brains in the legal profession; he was representing the Ghana Moslem Mission. Mr. Speaker, this year, he was forced to resign because he literally had to bear his expenses from Kumasi to Accra, find accommodation

Mr. K. Osei-Prempeh (NPP - Nsuta/ Kwamang/Beposo)

himself to attend the meetings and it was too much for him and therefore, he decided to resign; and he has resigned.

One other member, he is at KNUST, and she is also threatening to resign because when she comes to Accra she has to bear her accommodation expenses, transport expenses, everything by herself. This is all because the National Media Commission is not well resourced.

We all know the role of the media in the country and the crying which has been going on that the media must be regulated. The body charged with that responsibility is being starved of funds; the National Media Commission is like an orphaned organisation, and nobody cares about it. In fact, the amount given, ¢1,145 million means that it is going to be business as usual, the way it has operated; it is never going to change.

Its complete settlement has suffered a lot because sometimes Commissioners who should go and sit at the media settling committee, do not want to go because they go and no allowances are paid; even sometimes drinks, tea and cold drinks for members are hard to come by; even cocoa - Mr. Speaker, these are hard to come by and therefore, even cocoa, which is produced in Ghana -- So Mr. Speaker, I will humbly appeal to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to look at the National Media Commission's budget again.

Mr. Speaker, really, I believe that if Ghanaians do not want the National Media Commission to exist, we should say so, amend the Constitution and abolish the Commission, instead of allowing it to exist without it being provided with funds.

With these few words, I support the little given to the National Media Commission.

Mr. J. D. Mahama (NDC - Bole/ Bamboi)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support
the motion and continue in the same vein as my good hon. Friend, hon. Osei- Prempeh just ably advocated.
Mr. Speaker, the National Media Commission is one of the bodies set up under the Constitution. Unfortunately, it appears to be the poorest of these Commissions and it is actually the Commission that appears to receive the least care and attention. Mr. Speaker, we all know that the media is a very powerful tool in our democracy and so, why the National Media Commission receives such little care and attention is very difficult to fathom.
Mr. Speaker, all of us today are complaining about various aspects of journalistic profligacy. We complain about excesses of the media. Mr. Speaker, yet there is a body in the Constitution that is set up to deal with these very issues. The National Media Commission has various roles to play. One, it is supposed to help maintain the highest journalistic standards. Mr. Speaker, it is supposed to insulate the state-owned media from governmental control. Mr. Speaker, it is supposed to ensure the general independence and freedom of the general media and it is also supposed to investigate and settle complaints against the media.
Mr. Speaker, all these are provided for in the Constitution; why we cannot pay attention and strengthen this body to carry out this role and yet day in, day out we complain about the kind of media we have, one finds it very hard to understand.
Mr. Speaker, if we take the Complaints Settlement Committee, it has virtually become a toothless bulldog; most people prefer to even refuse to accede to the invitation of the committee. They refuse to appear before the committee and there
is not much that the National Media Commission has been able to do.

Mr. K. Armah

On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, my very good Friend is saying that Ministers are going in their droves to court and then killing media houses with hefty fines. I believe they go to court but they do not impose the fines. It is the courts that impose the fines depending upon the merit of the case. So he should straighten up that issue for record purposes.

Mr. Mahama

Mr. Speaker, I do not think my hon. Friend has legalistic training - [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Member for Bole/ Bamboi, I hope you are winding up.

Mr. Mahama

Mr. Speaker, he is a lawyer but as a pocket lawyer, I can educate him. When you file the - [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Member, please, go ahead.

Mr. Mahama

Mr. Speaker, I shall take your advice. Mr. Speaker, the point is that it looks like there is a loss of confidence in the Complaints Settlement Committee of the National Media Commission and so a lot of our colleagues who are public officers and Ministers here who think that their integrity has been assailed by some publication or the other, instead of going
to the National Media Commission, prefer to go to the law courts and in many cases, they make very huge demands in terms of damages and when the courts allow them, it creates quite a problem for some of the media in terms of payment.

Mr. Speaker, we are looking at progressive development - [Laughter] -- Mr. Speaker, many years after I left the Ministry of Information, the state media is still muzzled and not able to very independently express itself. And so I think that we must strengthen the National Media Commission to be able to carry out its role of continuing to insulate the media from governmental control. Power often is a very intoxicating thing and normally governments in power will try to ensure that the State-owned media toes a certain ideological path and it is the duty of the National Media Commission to ensure that these media houses are able to be independent.

Mr. Speaker, finally, I would want to say that the media is a cornerstone of our democracy and it is an institution that we have to live with. Indeed, many politicians have said that they prefer the media without government or government without the media, or something like that. Mr. Speaker, media have come over a period; there are improvements that are taking place.

Mr. Speaker

Majority Leader, I
thought you were going to wind up?
Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (NPP
-- Suame): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for the recognition.

Mr. Speaker

Majority Chief Whip,
you may then resume your seat.

Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu

Mr. Speaker, that is not to impugn the Chair of Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

All right, then go ahead.

Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu

Thank you
very much, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, just to add my voice to the motion on the floor to approve the budget for the National Media Commission. Mr. Speaker, going through the budget, the Special Budget Committee noticed that only ¢98 million has been allocated for the services of the National Media Commission. Mr. Speaker, the National Media Commission is a service-oriented outfit and really providing ¢98 million to them for that activity is clearly telling them not to do anything, in plain language. Mr. Speaker, I do not think that is the best.
The hon. Member for Bole/Bamboi, a former Minister for Communications himself and later on Information as well, is aware of the bumpy and chaotic situation in the media scene these days. By and large, we do acknowledge that most of them are doing very well. However, a few of them have persistently proven to be reckless and outrightly irresponsible and the National Media Commission needs to check their activities.
Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that today
when we are discussing the National Media Commission, the House does not have the full complement of our media people in the Chamber. We thought that, if they were here, they would take a cue and those of them who are persistent in the business of recklessness and irresponsibility will take a cue from what we are saying.
Mr. Speaker, we just informed ourselves that the National Media Commission is service-oriented. We are told they have only one ramshackled, squeaky contraption to work with. And I do not think that indeed is the best for such an institution.
Mr. Speaker, again, for a Commission that is supposed to oversee the activities of media practitioners, the print, electronic media, they need the services of a director or researchers. Only one person is supposed to man the Research Department of the National Media Commission. They managed to recruit one last year and that person is not on any remuneration. One would have thought that this year, some funds would be made available for the person. There is no provision in the budget for the remuneration of the Director of Research that the National Media Commission has recruited. Mr. Speaker, how does one expect the Director to function? Clearly, he may sooner or later resign from that position.
And finally, we are told that members of the Commission who come from outside Greater Accra Region have to come and pay for their own transport; if they have to stay overnight, take care of themselves in the various hotels that they stay in.
Mr. Speaker, we are about telling the
Commission to cease functioning by our own acts of omission. And that certainly is not the best way forward. And Mr. Speaker, I do not think that is good enough. We must admit to ourselves that we are not helping the Commission to grow and that the appeal we can make to the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning is to ensure that the humble request of the Commission is provided for as soon as other monies are made available in the national kitty.
The National Media Commission should be one of the first beneficiaries of any monies that come outside the budget money that this Parliament is approving for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
Mr. Speaker, with these few words, I
thank you for your indulgence.

Alhaji A. B. Sorogho (NDC - Abokobi-Madina)

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment; this time not to ask for the approval of this Report but to ask for its rejection.
Mr. Speaker, I say this based exactly on what has just been commented on by my senior Colleague, the Chief Whip for the Majority side.
Mr. Speaker, if you go through the Report and you come to the “Conclusion”, it is difficult to reconcile the body of the Report and the Conclusion. From the very beginning, budget allocation for Service -- nothing has gone on well; only ¢98,000,000 which cannot work. You descend to vehicles, like my senior Colleague said, two rickety vehicles; they cannot move; they described them as 11- and 13-year-old vehicles. Mr. Speaker, you come to Personal Emoluments and things are even worse.
Like he mentioned, Director, only one recruited and even that one, no salary. Mr. Speaker, you go further down and to the Commissioners who are travelling from outside, like the way my hon. Friend said, completely they come on their own; they have to come and look for their own accommodation; no travelling allowances.
Mr. Speaker, how do we expect the Commission to work? With all these, we can conclude and say that without prejudice to the above consideration, to me, I think it is a big problem.
Mr. Speaker, the Commission cannot work with what is stated in this Report. And I am thinking that we cannot just say that we should wait until there is money; efforts must be made to - No, the Report must be rejected; it should go back for them to come and tell us how they are going to work.
Mr. Speaker, the National Media Commission is a very important institution and we have all been talking. Whatever we are doing, with the National Media Commission, it can either be projected for Ghanaians to hear clearly -- the whole complaint that people are going to court and so on, it is because the confidence that people have in the National Media Commission is eroding. Mr. Speaker, if we do not equip them, if we do not build their capacity for them to be able to operate, I am afraid that the National Media Commission will only be there and it cannot bark, let alone bite.
Mr. Speaker, I am calling for the rejection of this Report so that it goes back to them to reconsider and come out well so that we know exactly what they have for the National Media Commission, before we can think of approving their budget. And I am calling on hon. Members to support me, for once - [Laughter] - just like my hon. Brother, the Chief Whip on the Majority side said. He amply enumerated everything and I think we are convinced that this particular Report cannot pass.
I hope and pray that all of us, whether Majority or Minority, should kick against it for it to go back and then be properly brought for us to reconsider it.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker,
it is good when we hear this type of contribution, which tries to urge us to, as it were, make a body cease to operate, because if we are to go by this advice, the only alternative is that we would have crucified this body since there would be nothing for them to spend.
Mr. Speaker, the other thing is that when I say notwithstanding, it means that we are not happy with what we are doing but we have no choice because, unfortunately, the Constitution does not allow us to increase the amount; we can at best cut. But more importantly, Mr. Speaker, I was holding a document which I had wanted to present to the House when we start discussion, that there would be Office of Parliament. But in the light of this, I think that it is just well that we make the information available so that when we come to discuss that of the Office of Parliament perhaps, we would know what sort of contribution to make. Mr. Speaker, your goodself, under your own signature, made a request for a little over ¢300 billion for the Office of Parliament.

Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin

On a point of
order. Mr. Speaker, the call is not just to reject it in toto but I think it is a call for a withdrawal and then a reconsideration; we can come back. This budget will take effect from 1st January and therefore, if the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning is mindful of adding just ¢1 billion to this amount, the Committee could go back, reconsider and submit the Report, even by tomorrow, so that we do not actually strangulate the Commission to death. That is what is being called for.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker,
I said we do not have the mandate to increase the amount. That is why I wanted to give you this figure. Because I made an earlier statement that anytime we want to make a recommendation to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to increase a sector's budget, we should all have it done in a manner of recom- mendation to the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning saying that - “Look, take the money out of what you intend giving to Parliament so that you will reduce Parliament's vote by ¢1 billion and then you get the metrics right.”
Mr. Speaker, I got the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning when we were looking at the Special Budget Estimates and it was becoming a refrain that each of the sectors would come and be able to convince you to a very high degree that the amount is not enough.
I have with me, in percentage terms, the allocations that have been made to each of the sectors and it was our wish that I place it at the table so that it would be produced in the Hansard for all of us to begin to appreciate how we distribute the annual amount for the various sectors; so that when we begin to talk about the need to increase a particular sector's budget, we would then see what we want to suggest.
Mr. Speaker, we have the sectors and with your permission, I can give you some few examples.
The Office of Parliament is there; the Audit Service is there. They have all been given a percentage of the amount which

is just a 100 per cent. Since time is of the essence, all that I want to do is to crave your indulgence and allow the Hansard to capture this document for consideration by all hon. Members.

Now, there is this saying that the spirit is willing but the body is weak; and it is just because that money that is not there cannot be distributed. That is why we need to find how we could increase the money, and I would plead with you that let us at least agree just like the Committee was compelled under the circumstances to agree, that it is not enough but half a loaf is better than none, so that we take this.

We also want to work on the belief that there may be a supplementary budget and when such a supplementary budget comes, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning would take into account these positive statements that have been made on the floor of the House so that at that point, we may be having a good bargaining trip to say, we drew your attention to these matters; how are you solving it?

After all, this year, a lot of suggestions came from members of the public, institutions, towards the preparation of this budget, so I do not expect that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning will ignore these good suggestions that we have made.

It is for this reason that I want to suggest that notwithstanding the good move they have made, we all agree that we give them the little that is available and hope that there would be more money for us to share within the very shortest possible time.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

We should create and share -- and I always say that is the best slogan that Ghana ever had; except that it was never created but was being shared.

Question put and motion agreed to.

Resolved:

That this honourable House approves the sum of ¢1,145 million for the services of the National Media Commission for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, that this honourable House approves the sum of ¢45,230 million for the services of the National Commission on Culture for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. A. O. Aidooh

Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, I think it is necessary we suspend further discussion on this particular motion and take the last item for the day, because the Chairman of the Committee -- [Interruption] - Oh, I mean, we have already moved and seconded, it has become the property of the House and we are only deferring debate -- [Inter- ruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Majority Leader, do you have the Chairman of the Committee on Employment?

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Yes, I am told a Member is around to handle the matter.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Members, we are going back to item 4 (c).

Mr. Samuel Adu

None

Report of the Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises on the Annual Budget Estimates of the Ministry of Public Sector Reform for the 2006 fiscal year.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, if you can take item 18 as the last item for the day.

Mr. Speaker

Item 18 - Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker, I would want to crave your indulgence to permit the Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning to handle this.

Mr. Speaker

I have granted him leave.

Mr. E. K. D. Adjaho

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning (Dr. Akoto Osei) is out of order. Mr. Speaker, he moves his motion, the Committee submits its report. The Committee's Report is not - and yet he is anticipating the Report. He should move his motion and then when we get to the Committee's Report and the debate starts, we will know what comments to pass.

Dr. A. A. Osei

Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning has a lot of responsibilities in terms of its work and what I was trying to tell the House was that, we have spent a lot of time, two Deputy Ministers tried to do a lot of explanation to the Committee. And a lot of what the Committee has written is based on intensive discussions with my Colleague who happens to be in South Africa and my boss who had to leave for Washington on an emergency.
Mr. Speaker, there are just two things that I want to say to the House, that we have tried, with the indulgence of this House, to present two budgets this year to this House, and I want to thank all my Colleagues from both sides for assisting us to do that.
We have, Mr. Speaker, essentially two pieces of agenda for next year - this coming year, one is internal and the other is external.
The external one relates to the fact that we have tried, with your assistance, to request debt relief assistance to the tune of about ¢4.2 billion. And next year, we want to assure you that we are working hard to ensure that this assistance is really achieved. Internally, our focus is going to be on continued discipline. Aside of continued fiscal discipline to ensure that
there is micro stability which we have achieved in the last couple of years, we want to ensure that our Colleagues in this House are well resourced to do their work.
So we are looking for resources, as it were, to house Members in terms of offices. We have been tasked by the Leadership of this House to look for supplementary funds to come back to this House so that we can augment the budget of Parliament to ensure that Colleagues are comfortable in terms of their environment - [Interruption.] I am on Parliament before I go to my Ministry. I am trying to tell you what my Ministry is trying to do not only for the rest of the nation but for this august House; and we want to assure you that we will work as hard as we can.
We have taken note of all the requests to our Ministry but I want to assure Members that these powers do not belong to this Ministry, these powers belong appropriately to this august House. We think that if the committees will spend a little time doing oversight work before the budgets are prepared, we will get a better insight in terms of the lands of requests that we are able to approve.
Very often, we are playing the role of the Auditor-General. We will wait until the harm has been done, as it were, and come back to talk about how inadequate the budgets are. We think that from our view- point, committees should spend a little time in the course of the year to work with the various Ministries. They will be able to advise us properly. This is why, as I said, we will come back next year, as it were, to look for ways to resource the committees to ensure that their work would be appropriately done.
Mr. Speaker, with these few words, I beg to move.

Chairman of the Committee (Mrs. Grace Coleman)

Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the motion on the floor. Mr. Speaker, in doing so, I would want to present the Report. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we have an extensive Report here and my hope is that Members have read the Report and can comment on it.
Mr. Speaker, I would want to crave your indulgence for the Hansard to capture the whole Report as having been read while I read the Observations and the Conclusions. 1.0 Introduction
The 2006 Annual Draft Budget Estimates of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning was laid in the House on Thursday, 10th November 2005 and referred to the Finance Committee for consideration and report in accordance with article 179 of the Constitution and the Standing Orders of the House. This followed the presentation of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the year ending 31st December, 2006 by the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, hon. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu.
The Committee met with two Deputy Ministers for Finance and Economic Planning, hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu and Dr. A. Akoto Osei and a technical team from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and discussed the 2006 budget estimates.
2.0 Background
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning exists to ensure macro-economic stability for the promotion of sustainable growth and development of Ghana. These
among others are:
The formulation and implementation of sound financial, fiscal and monetary policies;
The efficient mobilization, allocation and management of financial resources;
Creating an enabling environment for investment.
3.0 Reference Documents
i . t he 1992 Cons t i tu t ion o f the Republic of Ghana;
ii. the Standing Orders of the House;
iii. the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the 2006 Financial Year.
4.0 Highlights of Ministry's Performance as at October 2005
The underpinning objective of the work programme in 2005 was improvement in Public Expenditure Management, which is key in both the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) and the Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC) policy documents.
In its effort to improve the processes and procedures for prudent public expenditure management, the Ministry set itself the task of completing the Budget Preparation Expenditure Management System (BPEMS) roll-out to the pilot MDAs. The set-up and configuration -- 100 per cent complete in both test and production instances and has been deployed to the following MDA headquarters:
Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning;
Controller and Accountant-General;
Ministry of Health - Headquarters;
Ghana Health Service - Head-quarters;
Ministry of Education and Sports - Headquarters;
G h a n a E d u c a t i o n S e r v i c e - Headquarters.
4.1 The Financial Administration Laws
To further operationalize the Financial Administration Act, 2003, Act 654, the Ministry issued a circular on procurement planning to all MDAs which has been largely complied with. Tender Review Committees in MDAs and MMDAs were established. The Central Tender Review Board has also been established.
4.2 Non-Tax Revenue
The Ministry continued to implement measures to improve non-tax revenue mobilization.
The following activities among others were implemented:
MDAs were sensi t ized on the reporting requirements of the Financial Administration Act (FAA) and FAR as a result of which most of them are now reporting their NTR/IGF in accordance with the new format contained in the
FAR;
Restructuring of the revenue collection procedures started in 20 MDAs. 5 MDAs have reported completion of the process as at September 2005;
A pilot system for the tracking and validating of retained IGFs for selected MDAs was started; and

Debates of 6 Dec 2005

PRAYERS 10:10 a.m.

CORRECTION OF VOTES 10:10 a.m.

AND PROCEEDINGS AND 10:10 a.m.

THE OFFICIAL REPORT 10:10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 10:10 a.m.

PAPERS 10:10 a.m.

Majority Leader (Mr. Felix Owusu 10:10 a.m.

Majority Leader (Mr. Felix Owusu 10:10 a.m.

CONSIDERATION OF ANNUAL 10:20 a.m.

ESTIMATES 10:20 a.m.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs/ Leader of the House (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong) 10:20 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 10:20 a.m.

ANNUAL ESTIMATES 10:20 a.m.

Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong 10:20 a.m.

Mr. A. Ossei Aidooh 10:20 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 10:20 a.m.

Mr. J. Y. Chireh (NDC - Wa West) 10:20 a.m.

Mr. J. D. Mahama (NDC - Bole- Bamboi) 10:20 a.m.

Mr. A. K. Agbesi (NDC -- Ashaiman) 10:30 a.m.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Nana Akufo-Addo) 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (NPP -- Suame) 10:30 a.m.

ANNUAL ESTIMATES 10:30 a.m.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (Mr. Felix Owusu-Adjapong) 10:30 a.m.

Mr. A. O. Aidooh 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Lee Ocran (NDC - Jomoro) 10:30 a.m.

Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Ndebugre 10:30 a.m.

Mr. J. Y. Chireh (NDC - Wa West) 10:50 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 10:50 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 10:50 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 10:50 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 11 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 11 a.m.

ANNUAL ESTIMATES 11 a.m.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong) 11 a.m.

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11 a.m.

Chairman of the Special Budget Committee (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong) 11 a.m.

Mr. A. K. Agbesi (NDC - Ashaiman) 11 a.m.

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin) 11 a.m.

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin) 11:10 a.m.

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 11:10 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 11:10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker 11:10 a.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 11:10 a.m.

ANNUAL ESTIMATES 11:20 a.m.

Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr. Alan Kyeremateng) 11:20 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, the GRATIS Foundation will pursue its core objectives by providing 11:30 a.m.

NIL 11:30 a.m.

NIL 11:30 a.m.

GRAND TOTAL 11:30 a.m.

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea) 11:30 a.m.

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea) 11:30 a.m.

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea) 11:40 a.m.

Mr. Dan K. Abodakpi (NDC - Keta) 11:40 a.m.

A 11:40 a.m.

PP 11:40 a.m.

E 11:40 a.m.

N 11:40 a.m.

D 11:40 a.m.

IX 11:40 a.m.

Mr. Kwame Osei-Prempeh (NPP - Nsuta/Kwamang/Beposo) 11:50 a.m.

Mr. Kojo Armah 11:50 a.m.

Mr. Osei-Prempeh 11:50 a.m.

Alhaji M. M. Mubarak (NDC - Asawase) noon

Mr. Francis A. Agbotse (NDC - Ho West) noon

Mr. Dan Abodakpi noon

Mr. Agbotse noon

Mr. C. K. Humado (NDC - Anlo) 2:10 p.m.

Mr. Speaker 2:10 p.m.

Mr. Alan Kyeremateng 2:10 p.m.

Mr. Speaker 2:10 p.m.

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong 2:10 p.m.

ANNUAL ESTIMATES 2:10 p.m.

Mr. Speaker 12:20 p.m.

Mr. E. T. Mensah 12:20 p.m.

Mr. J. H. Mensah 12:20 p.m.

PRAYERS

CORRECTION OF VOTES

AND PROCEEDINGS AND

THE OFFICIAL REPORT

Mr. Speaker

PAPERS

Majority Leader (Mr. Felix Owusu

Majority Leader (Mr. Felix Owusu

CONSIDERATION OF ANNUAL

ESTIMATES

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs/ Leader of the House (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong)

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

ANNUAL ESTIMATES

Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. A. Ossei Aidooh

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. J. Y. Chireh (NDC - Wa West)

Mr. J. D. Mahama (NDC - Bole- Bamboi)

Mr. A. K. Agbesi (NDC -- Ashaiman)

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Nana Akufo-Addo)

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (NPP -- Suame)

ANNUAL ESTIMATES

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (Mr. Felix Owusu-Adjapong)

Mr. A. O. Aidooh

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Lee Ocran (NDC - Jomoro)

Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin

Mr. Ndebugre

Mr. J. Y. Chireh (NDC - Wa West)

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

ANNUAL ESTIMATES

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (Mr. F. K. Owusu-Adjapong)

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu

Chairman of the Special Budget Committee (Mr. F. K. Owusu- Adjapong)

Mr. A. K. Agbesi (NDC - Ashaiman)

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin)

Minority Leader (Mr. A. S. K. Bagbin)

Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

ANNUAL ESTIMATES

Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr. Alan Kyeremateng)

Mr. Speaker, the GRATIS Foundation will pursue its core objectives by providing

NIL

NIL

GRAND TOTAL

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea)

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea)

Chairman of Committee (Nana Akomea)

Mr. Dan K. Abodakpi (NDC - Keta)

A

PP

E

N

D

IX

Mr. Kwame Osei-Prempeh (NPP - Nsuta/Kwamang/Beposo)

Mr. Kojo Armah

Mr. Osei-Prempeh

Alhaji M. M. Mubarak (NDC - Asawase)

Mr. Francis A. Agbotse (NDC - Ho West)

Mr. Dan Abodakpi

Mr. Agbotse

Mr. C. K. Humado (NDC - Anlo)

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Alan Kyeremateng

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Owusu-Adjapong

ANNUAL ESTIMATES

Mr. Speaker

Mr. E. T. Mensah

Mr. J. H. Mensah

Chairman of the Committee (Mrs. Grace Coleman)