Parliament will on Wednesday, December 21, adjourn its third meeting this year which began on October 25.

This was revealed by Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu when he presented the business statement for the week ending Friday, December 9.

The House will sit today, to enable the expeditious consideration of the budget estimates and the passage of the Appropriation Bill.

To enable the various ministries to receive the budget allocated to them, Parliament has to first approve the 2023 budget statement and economic policy presented to the House by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta on November 24.

Prior to returning from recess on Tuesday, October 25, Parliament's Director of Public Affairs, Kate Addo, announced that 66 bills would be laid before the House.

These bills included the Affirmation Action Bill, 2022, the Minerals and Mining (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Ghana Housing Authority Bill, 2022, the Small Scale Mining Bill, 2022 and the Petroleum Revenue Management (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

She had also mentioned that a private members’ bill which was referred to the Council of State will also be presented before the House.

Eleven bills are at the committee level, of which seven (7) are public bills and four (4) are private member bills.

They include the Interstate Succession Bill, 2022, which was before the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, and the Armed Forces (Amendment) Bill, 2022, before the Committee on Defence and Interior.

The rest are the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 (Committee on Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs) and the Criminal Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2021 (Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs).

Meanwhile, the maiden Africa Open Parliament Index by the Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica) and the Ghana Parliamentary Monitoring Organisations Network (GPMON) has revealed that Ghana is leading in parliamentary openness in the West African subregion.

The Africa Open Parliament Index (OPI), is a tool that seeks to periodically measure the level of openness of legislative assemblies on the continent.

The OPI uses the three criteria of Open Parliament: Transparency, Civic Participation and Public Accountability, to assess Parliaments across Africa.

Source: The Independent Ghana