More money to be spent on Parliament

The House of Ghana’s Legislature will be expanded soon, officials have revealed.

This, according to Finance Minister, Seth Tekper, is to pave way for standard facilities to be installed in the chamber.

“The capacity of the existing chamber is inadequate to accommodate the increased membership and lack standard facilities…,” he said.

Mr. Tekper stated that this has given rise to government’s intention to conduct feasibility studies this year to see how it can expand the building.

The finance minister made this known when he delivered the 2013 annual budgetary statement on the floor of Parliament last Tuesday.

The issue of the lack of space in Ghana’s Parliament became a subject of discussion in the run-up to the 2012 elections, especially as the Electoral Commission intended to create additional forty-five seats to meet the constitutional mandate of government on the creation of new districts.

That created a heated argument that ended in a stalemate as the fifth Parliament of the fourth republic of Ghana after a week into its inauguration had to suspend sitting for two weeks to allow for expansion works to be done on the House.

As expected, the announcement of the possible expansion of the House attracted responses from members of the Minority side who rhetorically sought to know if government had now seen the sense in what they had suggested in the last two months of 2012.

The reactions by the Minority did not however deter the finance minister who had gone there to present his first budget to promise that Parliament will continue with the major projects on the Job 600 building which is earmarked to be offices for the 275 MPs.

“The projects lined up [in the Job 600 Building] include an electronic component of the building, refurbishment and the implementation of a e-Parliament system,” he added.

Mr. Tekper also promised that government will complete the establishment of a Fiscal Analysis Office (FAO) to provide in-house capacity on fiscal, financial and budget analysis and will also support the work of Parliament across the legislative, representation and oversight functions.