Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Yes, I'm glad you have been in Ghana and have seen the problems of the transition and most especially the very dominant executive that a young Parliament had to deal with.
Indeed, because of our history, if you look at the arms of government as we traditionally know them, Parliament is the weakest of the three brothers. It's the weakest of the three brothers because each time there is a military adventure, the executives themselves incorporate the legislative power, as well as the executive power. Of course, the judiciary will always be there to do their bidding.
When Parliament was re-established, it came in as a toddler and had to really fight with a very dominant vision. It is a problem we are still grappling with. To be very honest with you, we have not overcome it. We've not overcome it because one of the disservices the constitution we are now using imposes on us was that even though we were trying to go to an executive presidential system, part of the constitution looked at blending the executive and the ministers together.
The other thing was that the president, who had enormous executive powers, was also given the mandate to select some of his ministers from among members of Parliament. The result was that he picked very powerful ministers from Parliament who were serving in his cabinet and at the same time voting and debating on the floor of the House, influencing people who were there in the House
Because of the opposition, and you know that our development of Parliament has such a weakness, you now need to depend on some of those ministers to push the government agenda.
Mind you, the MP is the same as a development agent, as well as a legislative agent. That poses a lot of problems, and we are still trying to grapple with it.
What we're now doing, and what civil society is helping us to do, is to propose that part of the Constitution needs to be amended, especially this aspect, such that if we're going to have an executive president, let him bring all his ministers from outside Parliament. Parliament will then be free enough and people will be free enough to think.
What happens now is you are a member of Parliament, and because you are hoping that one day you'll become a minister, decision-making in relation to the executive on the floor of the House becomes impaired. We are still grappling with that problem.
Our way forward is together with civil society. Proposals are coming and very soon our constitutional review will be seen.
But quite apart from that, there are oversight functions that, as we grow and begin to learn and know what we can do, are beginning to take on a little more shape and they're beginning to bite a little more and cut down the powers of the executive.
It's not as dominant as it used to be, but it's definitely still powerful simply because members of the executive are also members of the legislature. Somehow or another, they influence the legislation in various ways. That is the problem.
Thank you.