The committee will deal specifically with issues that citizens petition the House about.

Speaking at a leadership meeting on strengthening parliamentary oversight of the Executive, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu bemoaned the practice where Parliament received petitions but failed to address issues raised as unacceptable.
The programme, which brought together the chairmen, vice chairmen and ranking members of the various parliamentary committees, was also attended by the Chief of Staff, Frema Osei Opare as well as Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu.

“When a petition is presented to the house, often times the Speaker will ask Majority Leader please can you go and meet the demonstrators or the petitioners, and that’s about the end of it.

“Nothing happens after that, and yet the people that we represent are the people who come to us that we are not happy with A, B or C.

“How do you resolve that for us but we take them, we are not able to do anything about it, we must have a properly defined structure to deal with this.
“The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs is to serve as the interface between the Executive and the Legislature to enhance governance.

Dr Evans Darkoh, Acting Chief Director of the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry made a presentation on strengthening parliamentary oversight to the Members of Parliament (MPs).

He said the legislative oversight must ensure that the executive remained highly responsive and accountable.

Dr Darkoh explained that the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs had been strategically positioned to serve as an interface between the executive and the legislature was working diligently to enhance representative democracy processes to guarantee good governance through dialogue and consensus building for the development of the country.