The Chairman of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Caucus in Parliament, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, has called on the Open Parliament Working Group to urgently implement the action plans of the organisation.
He pointed out that Parliament’s prompt delivery of information to the public was essential.
Mr Bedzrah, who is the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Ho West, made the call when he spoke to the Open Parliament Working Group, a platform jointly established between Parliament and civil society organisations (CSOs).
He was speaking at the group’s end-of-year strategic review workshop last Saturday to evaluate its work and speed up the implementation of Ghana’s Open Parliament Action Plan, which was launched in June this year.
Action plan
Mr Bedzrah stated that although the Action Plan was launched midway through the year, which provided limited time for implementation, the Working Group had ample opportunity to accelerate progress.
He stressed the importance of providing consistent feedback to citizens and ensuring that parliamentary reports and information were easily accessible to the public.
“As soon as a report is laid in Parliament, it should be readily available to the public, and if citizens are not getting that feedback, then we have a problem,” he said.
Public trustThe Clerk to Parliament, Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror, stated that public trust remained central to Parliament’s legitimacy, and, therefore, reinforced the need for openness.He stressed the need to strengthen Right to Information systems to ensure that citizens, whom he described as “the true owners of our democracy”, had unhindered access to parliamentary processes.
On his part, the Executive Director of PN Africa and Steering Committee Co-Chair, Sammy Obeng, highlighted the importance of deeper collaboration between Parliament and civil society.
He stated that Ghana’s leadership in the global Open Parliament movement must yield measurable results that directly benefitted citizens.
The Executive Director of Transparency International Ghana and Co-Chair of the National OGP Steering Committee, Mary Addah, called for closer alignment with national OGP priorities, improved evidence-gathering and stronger citizen engagement.
