Increasing the number of beneficiary missions
While the Ministry has a list of ten missions selected to benefit from the facility, it is prepared to consider other missions which are not on the list but have identified projects which can benefit from the facility. The Committee noted that the Ministry has added Seoul and Madrid which were not originally part of the selected missions.
Recommendations And Conclusion
Mission's facilities and properties
The Committee found that most of the mission's properties and facilities were in deplorable state and needs urgent replacement and repairs. The Committee believes the re-construction, renovation and outright purchase of properties and facilities for use of the Ghana missions abroad will go a long way to enhance the image of the country in the comity of nations.
In view of this, the Committee recommends to the Ministry to fast track the procurement processes for the release of funds from the loan to enable works to commence on the properties that have been selected for the project.
The Committee further recommends that a line budget should be provided in the Annual Budget Estimate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration for incremental repair works in all the Missions.
Monitoring and Oversight
The Committee recommends that to ensure effective oversight of the
mission's activities, the Committee on Foreign Affairs be encouraged to undertake future oversight visit to the Missions that were not visited;
The Committee further recommends that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration submits a compre- hensive report on the state of Ghana's missions to the Committee on Foreign Affairs every year for the attention of Parliament.
Provision of passport and visa issuance machines
It was noted that busy missions such as Paris do not have the capacity to issue passports and visas on their own. The Committee therefore recommends that the Ministry takes steps to establish a fully- fledged passport and visa issuance processing centres with capacity to print and issue passports and visas in missions with high numbers of applications.
Acquisition of permanent properties for missions in rented accommodation
The Committee noted that a number of the missions visited are housed in temporary rented properties.
Having regard to the high cost of renting these properties and the challenge faced by the missions in meeting their annual rental obligations to landlords, the Committee recommends to the Ministry to take steps to procure permanent offices and residential accommodation for missions that operate from rented properties by outright purchase or through a mortgage arrangement.
Additional funding for missions not covered under the current facility
The Committee realised that some of the missions visited such as Beijing, Seoul and New York did not benefit from the Facility although they were found to be in deplorable states. The Committee recommends that the Ministry should, as a matter of urgency, procure the needed funding to enable works to commence in these missions.
The Committee, after a careful consideration of its findings, recommends to the House to adopt its report.
Respectfully submitted.
Mr Speaker, in conclusion, it is not a shame to say that a facility was acquired during the era of the former Government in the year 2016. Typical of this Government and as all of us would recognise that the President himself was once an Hon Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, he ensured that processes were continued and the loan has been acquired.
Never again should this country come to a stage where properties acquired some years for the country would be allowed to go down in a state of disrepair.
To that end, we would want to urge the Executive and, for that matter, the Hon Minister for Foreign Affairs to institute a reform where on an annual basis, the House and your Committee should be apprised on the real state of our properties and missions across the world.
We are very confident that if we put these measures in place, we would come atop the state of our missions abroad.
I would, on behalf of the Committee, take this opportunity to profusely congratulate you, Mr Speaker, because we
are reliably informed that this is the first time your Committee has been engaged in such an outward oversight.
We would want to profusely thank you and the Hon Minority and Hon Majority Leaders for paving the way for this work to be done. We are very excited about it, and we are confident that it would set a motion and process to ensure that our missions really reflect the image of our country, and the welfare of our foreign service staff is taken seriously.
Mr Speaker, respectfully, I submit.
Thank you.
Ranking Member of the Committee (Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa): Mr Speaker, I am most grateful for the opportunity to second the Report that has been ably presented by the Hon Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mr Speaker, as the Hon Chairman has noted, this is the first time such a fact- finding mission has been carried out by your Committee. It is due to the facilitation of the Speakership and the Leadership of this House that this has been possible. So we would want to convey the appreciation of the Committee to the Rt Hon Speaker and the Leadership of the House for facilitating this tour.
Mr Speaker, our Report shows that this tour, indeed, was long overdue. The impression we had every year when we approved Budget Statements and went through annual Estimates was really underestimated; we totally under- estimated the enormity of the challenges that confront the image of our country when it comes to our 62 missions abroad.
Mr Speaker, what we have found out, as the Report reveals, is really troubling, and this cannot continue. We would appeal to this House to take a serious view of what is happening to our missions abroad.
As we speak, inspectors have declared some of our chanceries and the residences of our Ambassadors' health risks and death-traps. Indeed, the New York Mission, the permanent mission of Ghana to the United Nations, is in such a sordid state that if care is not taken, we would soon have tragedy on our heads.
We all know how important that mission is and our obligations to the United Nations. Every year, at least once, our President will visit New York and address the UN General Assembly. It is really sad that we have allowed our facilities abroad to deteriorate to this level.
Mr Speaker, the concern that I have has to do with the proactive approach that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration took to secure a loan facility of US$50 million as revealed on page 12 of the Report in the year 2016.
If you look at the terms of the facility, itemised as 7.2, the grace period for the loan is one year after which we will pay an interest of 8.4 per cent per annum. We secured this facility in the year 2016 and we are now in the year 2018, a few days away from 2019 and we have still not taken off nor utilised this Facility because of delays.
The concern I have is that the interest is accruing, we are servicing this facility, the buildings are deteriorating, we need urgency.
If these delays and challenges would continue when we listen to the Ministry and raise these concerns, they have talked about some of the jurisdictional peculiarities about building permits and getting contractors and all of the dynamism with the laws of different jurisdictions and all of that.
The question is, if this continues, then perhaps, we may have to renegotiate this facility, if not, we would cause financial loss to the State as we continue to pay the interest on this loan Facility.
Mr Speaker, what is clear is that urgent action is required. Apart from the deterioration, we also found out that there is a shortage of residential and chancery facilities for our missions, and that is why when we did the estimates and assessed the year 2017, we spent GH¢62 million on rent alone as a country. That is so high.
At the time, it was US$14 million on just rent. If we own properties, we would save in the medium-to-long term. I recall that during the Estimates that we considered for the year 2018, the Hon Minority Leader raised this and Mr Speaker strongly supported the point that we have to take a second look at how much this country is spending on renting facilities.
In Kenya, we found out that we have a very important building that is strategically placed in a prime location. However, the entire facility has been so much ran down that it is closed.
We all know how important the Kenyan Post is, apart from the Embassy there, the Mission serves the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Human Settlement Programme (UNHabitat) which are headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
So it is a very busy Mission we have a facility in a prime location, land valued at millions of dollars but it is closed; it is no longer habitable, and we are spending so much on rent. When they told us how much we pay on rent, we were very outraged because that could only amount to imprudent use of resources.
Mr Speaker, so your Committee has done its work by carrying out its oversight duties, we are now fully apprised and well acquainted with what is going on with our missions abroad. Poor maintenance culture, the lack of adequate budgeting and inadequacy in the facilities available.
We need to commend our foreign service staff abroad, they are doing very well under difficult conditions and we cannot continue this way.
As I conclude, I would want to appeal to His Excellency the President, who has been an Hon Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration before and who very much knows about some of these challenges, that additional resources have to be put at the disposal of the Hon Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
Mr Speaker, already, if you look at the 2019's Budget Statement, CAPEX has been reduced as compared to last year. So we may need an additional facility; the US$15million is woefully inadequate looking at the enormity of the problem confronting us.
So we may need another facility and it is important that His Excellency the President and the Hon Minister for Finance pay attention to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
All of us when we travel abroad on official assignment, we expect our missions abroad to be on call and to assist
