The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban S.K Bagbin has indicated that for Parliament to properly perform its oversight duties on the executive arm of government, it needs to build its capacity in data.
To that effect, the Speaker has asked MPs and Parliament as an institution to build its capacity in how to exploit data to enhance its effectiveness, particularly in its oversight responsibility over the executive.
The Speaker made the call when he helped launch a three-day data fair at the precinct of Parliament on Wednesday.
The fair was organised by the African Center for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the International Network for Advancing Science and Policy (INASP).
Hinged on the theme: “Achieving effective parliamentary oversight; the role of data evidence”, the program is expected to build the capacity of Members of Parliament and the parliamentary staff to understand the application of big data in its day-to-day activities and to ensure that it is more nimble and effective in its oversight responsibilities over the executive.
On the national scale, the program is expected to enable the country build upon the quality of its national data.
Throwing light on why parliament needs to exploit data to perform its oversight effectively, Speaker Bagbin explained that Parliament is to ensure the executive works and makes decisions and policies in the interest of the people of this country.
Furthermore, oversight is an element of good governance and transparency and represents those interventions made by Parliament to review, monitor and evaluate the executive’s policies, plans, programmes and projects.
It is also to ensure that they are achieving expected results, represent good value for money and are in compliance with applicable policies, laws, regulations and ethical standards, he observed.
Speaker Bagbin said that when Parliament’s oversight responsibility is effectively exercised, it allows for the required due diligence to be conducted before key decisions are made and major policies, regulations and laws are considered.
“It ensures that policies and strategies are implemented as intended and in a way to provides integrity for the use of the country’s financial resources as well as the processes adopted and serves as an indication of transparency and accountability on the part of the executive and helps to build trust among the citizens in the management of the affairs of the country.”
He indicated that all these activities under the umbrella of Parliament’s oversight responsibility are best conducted if Parliament has access to data, to baseline information and statistics on benchmarking, that points it towards the right direction.
“Parliament is at its best with this responsibility if it has the capacity to analyze the data so collected and is able to make a meaningful interpretation of it for purposes of decision making and for the guidance of the executive.”
He indicated that the availability and use of data is one sure way to provide returns to the voters who sent them to Parliament.
Touching on why the country needs to build national data, Speaker Bagbin opined that the country has engaged in guess work for long in various fields of national endeavor, to the extent that whenever state institutions come out with data and statistics, its very integrity and reliability is questioned.
Meanwhile, “it is data and not opinions that strengthen decisions”.
He, therefore, indicated that the country has a responsibility to bring an end to that and improve upon the quality of its national data.
He said he hoped that the fair will contribute to a situation in which Ghana as a country will begin to rely a lot more on data-driven decisions and other interventions, so that the various measures introduced in the country will be more efficacious in their outcomes.
The Executive Director for ACEPA, Dr Rasheed Draman, also indicated that it is time to ensure that decisions in Parliament are based on solid evidences.
He indicated that there are times where politics has affected the best data and evidence and that’s not the way to go hence the need to build the capacity of members to analyse big data.
He said ACEPA, an organization whose core mandate is to build effective parliaments for greater development hopes to create a society where decisions are made base on data hence the organisation of the data fair.
Prof Sameul K. Annim, Government Statistician, who also spoke at the program indicated that there was an imbalance in the demand and supply of data in the country, a situation which isn’t too impressive, hence their decision to partner with ACEPA and others to bridge that gap.
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