The Ministry organised an engagement with the Civil Society Organisations on the 6^th of December 2018 at the Alisa Hotel.  The theme for the programme was “Interrogating the Performance of Parliament in the Fourth Republic – Perspective of the Civil Society Organisations.’’ The main objective of the programme was to examine the performance of Ghana’s Parliament since 1993 in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses and provide a way forward into the next twenty-five years of Ghana’s democratic journey.

The CSOs had opportunity to interact with the Leadership of Parliament and explicitly expressed weaknesses within the legislative system and provided innovative ways to influence the performance of Parliament. Another objective was for the CSOs to appreciate the nature of the institutional architecture of Parliament and its effect on the functioning of the institution. The discourse digested the following topics:

• Institutional framework of Parliament and its effect on the performance of its functions
• The nature, strengths and weaknesses of the committee system of Parliament
• The Speaker of Parliament as an independent umpire
• The contributions of Parliament to the consolidation of Ghana’s democracy
• Parliament-Civil Society interface and the consolidation of Ghana’s democracy.

Source: Ministry Of Parliamentary Affairs