Politics : Scramble for committees
The formation of committees is something that has long characterised our national, academic, religious and social lives. We simply love it.
It is the first thing we actually think of whenever there is an open criticism or disapproval of something or national disaster. And it is also the first thing we think about whenever there is nothing to think about.
Probably for the cynic, its greatest efficacy lies in the fact that it takes a considerable amount of time for the committee to complete its work and before the work is done, the entire nation might have moved on to something either more thrilling or scandalous than the previous justification for the formation of the committee.
As someone said, we form committees to investigate why committees fail to implement the report of committees.
On the other hand as well, there are very good reasons for resorting to committees. First of all, two or more heads are better than one- even though they are likely to crash.
One is entitled to presume that better decisions are likely to be made with the assembly of men and women with diverse backgrounds and expertise.
But the recent scramble as to who has the right to form and constitute a committee has proven to be an untidy affair with both Parliament and Executive unable to hem in the loose ends of the failed World Cup project.
It was on Monday July 14, 2014. And guess what? The parliamentary chamber was alive with debates over the propriety or otherwise of the calls by the minority in Parliament for the formation of a bipartisan committee to investigate happenings in and around the camp of the Black Stars in the just ended World Cup tournament which saw the Ghanaian national side exiting in shambolic fashion.
At the end of the day, the majority had their way after a head count in which 94 Members of Parliament were against the motion, while 76 members mainly from the minority, were in favour of the motion. Whiles the losing side wondered whether Parliament had no such power to constitute a committee for the purpose of investigating the issue; others especially those on the majority side wondered whether as a matter of principle Parliament necessarily had to form a committee to get to the root of the matter.
The Ghanaian love affair with committees can be said to be one of the paradoxes of Ghanaian politics; whiles officialdom delight themselves in “forming”, “constituting”, “putting in place”, “arranging”, “inaugurating” and “commissioning” committees and commissions as a starting point, there seems to be a diminished appetite for the formation of committees on the streets- outside officialdom.
Outside the official corridors of power, the very wording of the committee is a subject of ridicule- especially the “tee” suffix which many equate to tea. The desire for instant justice is on high demand. Many continue to lose faith in the workings of the public system and institutions.
This gloomy picture is propped by the daily experiences of Ghanaians who are either denied access to healthcare because of the weak implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) or where the service is available denied access based on social, political and tribal affiliations.
It comes as no surprise that some youth at Maamobi took the despicable path of shoving the law aside and seeking to “right the wrong” when a taxi driver was shot by the police.
Vehicles were set ablaze. Properties were destroyed. Businesses were disrupted. And the image of a police service came under sharp focus over the manner in which its officials conduct themselves.
It is possible to weather the storm. It is possible to turn the tide. It is possible to make something meaningful and worthwhile out of the formation of committees in spite of the growing sense of despondency and cynicism.
Let’s take the typical example of the Public Accounts Committee for instance; every year its sittings are shown live on national television. Every year, it gives it recommendation. Every year, the same old issues raised in previous report of the committee keep recurring.
An effective vaccine is yet to be found to inoculate the country and its people of the bacteria that continually lead it towards the path of corruption and national wastage.
It should not take too much effort to come to the conclusion that the formation of committees is not ends in itself. They are to be useful; and to be useful here means at the end of the day, its intervention and impact should be palpable and capable of being felt by all and sundry. Its impact should be capable of being felt like a mosquito bite.
As for the scramble between Parliament and the Executive over who has the right to form either a committee or commission to look into the matters complained of, I would say to the minority- you may have lost out on the votes. That’s fine, very few expected otherwise. But do not lose your eye on the workings of the committee and its report.
At those stages, at least you can make a lot of difference.