Federick Opare-Ansah
Parliament was yesterday unanimous
in kicking against a new proposed amendment by the New Patriotic Party (NPP)
Member of Parliament (MP) for Suhum, Federick Opare-Ansah, who was trying to
introduce a time frame within which the bill can become operational after the
President has assented to it.
The Suhum MP’s new amendment which
was proposed at the tail end of the consideration of the bill wanted it to come
into force 12 months after the President has assented to it, but his fellow MPs
especially those from the minority side said that Parliament on its own cannot
adopt a new amendment which was not in the original bill.
According to the MPs, when the new
bill is accepted it will indict Parliament which has committed itself in going
through all the proposed amendments during consideration stage for it to be
passed finally before Parliament rises for the Easter break.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC)
MP for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini, said if there should be such major
amendment or insertion into the bill, it should come from the Attorney-General
(executive) and not a member of Parliament because it is the President who will
assent for the law to come into force.
According to him, no official
reason was given to the proposed amendment for the time frame of 12 months to
be put into the bill for the Act to become operational. He said Parliament does
not have the constitutional power to introduce such a clause in the bill.
The NDC MP for Bawku Central,
Mahama Ayariga, however, disagreed with the NDC MP for Tamale Central that Parliament
does not have the power to introduce a time frame into a bill, stressing that Parliament can indeed do that because when a bill is
brought to the House by the executive for consideration, it becomes the
property of Parliament. This means that Parliament can have the power to
determine when the bill will take effect.
He said the only problem is that
the amendment for the introduction of time frame did not come with any reason
and for that matter Parliament cannot accept such amendment based on the law.
He therefore proposed that the
amendment by the MP for Suhum be discarded to enable the bill to be passed into
law.
The Speaker of Parliament, Prof
Mike Oquaye, said that laws passed can never take retrospective effect but
rather ‘futuristic’ effect and so there is nothing wrong with the proposal for
the ‘futuristic’ effect of the RTI bill.
He however said that since Parliament
has promised the people that the bill will be passed before Easter for it to
take effect, it would be ‘suicidal’ and ‘disingenuous’ for Parliament to take
responsibility for the 12-month time frame to be inserted into the bill,
because it will mean that Parliament has not been faithful to the people of the
country.
He has therefore given the executive up to Tuesday to come and confer with the leadership of Parliament if it is in agreement with the new proposed amendment then the amendment will stand in the name of the executive and introduced in the bill so that the executive will take full responsibility for that time frame amendment and not Parliament.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr
