Improving democracy and accountability in Ghana

Transcription

1 From the SelectedWorks of Riccardo Pelizzo 2012 Improving democracy and accountability in Ghana riccardo pelizzo rick stapenhurst Available at:

2 Research Note Improving Democracy and Accountability in Ghana: The Importance of Parliamentary Oversight Toolsgove_ RICK STAPENHURST* and RICCARDO PELIZZO** In this research note, we examine the nature of, and influences on, parliamentary oversight in Ghana. We find that while macro-institutions are important when examining good governance and legislative effectiveness, meso-level institutions (such as oversight tools) are more important than previously acknowledged. We also detect a positive relationship between an increase in legislative oversight facilities and the reputation of parliament and its members, the legitimacy of democracy and political institutions, and the success in curbing corruption. And finally, we confirm that the successful functioning of institutions depends on the presence or absence of specific contextual factors. In the case of Ghana, these factors are a relatively low level of partisanship at the committee level, parliament s ability to find alternative sources of information, and the demand for good governance. Introduction Over the past two decades, Ghana has emerged as one of the few African countries where peaceful change of government has occurred. The most recent election (December 2008) marked the second alternation of government in Ghana; eight years previously, power was transferred from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the New Patriotic Party NDC; in December 2008, it transferred back to the NDC. Concurrently, the quality of Ghana s democracy has improved. Ratings from Freedom House regarding political rights and civil liberties rose from a low of 6 ( not free ) in 1991 to a current high of 2 ( free ). Similarly, the most recent Afrobarometer surveys demonstrate that nearly 80% of Ghanaians overwhelmingly prefer democracy over military rule, oneparty government, or dictatorship and that 86% of Ghanaians consider elections and the rule of law as the best vehicle for selecting leaders and maintaining order in the society. This indicates that the quality of democ- *McGill University and World Bank Institute **World Bank Institute Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 25, No. 2, April 2012 (pp ) Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

3 336 RICK STAPENHURST AND RICCARDO PELIZZO racy has improved and that the government has a high level of legitimacy, which, we will show later in this note, is due at least in part to the improvements in the quality of parliamentary oversight. The Afrobarometer surveys also show that Ghanaians consistently recognize parliament as the institution whose supreme responsibility is to check and restrain the executive from exceeding its constitutional powers. The 1992 Constitution prescribes a hybrid, or semi-presidential, system of government. The president is popularly elected to a four-year term of office, but in contrast to a pure presidential system, the majority of the cabinet members must be Members of Parliament (MPs). Parliament is the sole law-making branch of government with autonomy over its agenda. It can remove the president, vice president, and speaker, but the president cannot dissolve parliament. The uniqueness of this constitutional design was intended as a remedy against past failures (Lindberg and Zhou 2009), one of which was parliament s inadequacy to oversee the actions of government and, ultimately, to hold the government to account. This note is organized in the following way. In the first section, we present the purpose of this note and our data sources. Then we show that an increase in the perceived effectiveness of key parliamentary committees (both oversight and Appointments) and of question period has gone hand-in-hand with an increase in the legitimacy of parliament. In the third section, we discuss some of the contextual factors that created the conditions for the increasing success of parliament. In the final section, we draw some conclusions, notably that meso-institutions are as important, if not more so, as are macro-institutional arrangements in determining political outcomes. Purpose and Data The purpose of this research note is to present our research findings on the oversight function of the Parliament of Ghana and, in particular, the use of oversight and appointment committees and question period. Data are taken from two sources. First, we utilized data from a survey conducted by the World Bank Institute and the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 2009 among 120 legislatures worldwide (Pelizzo 2010; Pelizzo and Stapenhurst 2010). Second, we collected field data during The latter were composed of in-country document search, 52 personal interviews (18 with politicians, 16 with parliamentary staff, 9 with civil society representatives, and 9 with journalists) and four focus groups (one with each of the aforementioned groups), each of which is composed of between four and seven participants. The focus groups were composed of different participants from the personal interviews. A fifth focus group was conducted with a selection of earlier participants, at which preliminary analyses and conclusions were presented and validated.

4 IMPROVING DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GHANA 337 Parliamentary Oversight Committees Parliament has fairly extensive oversight powers or capacity: Government is collectively responsible to parliament, which, in turn, can keep government accountable through the use of committees by reviewing ministerial and other appointments and in questioning ministers, including the prime minister, in the chamber. We examine each of these oversight tools in turn. Committees The constitution intends the parliamentary committee system to be a vehicle for research and investigation as well as a platform for public participation in the legislative process (Ayensu and Darkwa 2006). Article 103 of the 1992 Constitution gives committees the powers, rights and privileges of the High Court or a Justice of the High Court (subsection 6) as well as the power to subpoena witnesses and documents. Each of the current 230 MPs must be appointed to at least one but no more than three standing committees. The speaker appoints the leader of most committees from the majority party, although under subsection 5 of Article 103, the chairs of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Committee on Statutory Instruments is reserved for members of the minority party. Our respondents believed that appointments to committees are not arbitrarily made by political parties or the speaker but rather are influenced by a combination of factors, including background, education, specialization, interests, leadership potential, party affiliation, and experience in parliament. MPs are required to apply for committee assignments, and their applications are used by party leaders to make preliminary assignments. Although MPs may be interviewed for committee positions, respondents generally believed that ultimately, the decision about committee assignments was made by the party leaders, forwarded to the Parliamentary Select Committee and to the House. Respondents indicated that the process by which MPs are assigned to committees is guided by the constitution, standing orders of parliament, regional balance, party unity, and compromise between the majority and minority party. This practice ensures a sense of inclusiveness in a multiethnic community and encourages public support for parliament and its work. An overwhelming majority of our respondents (including members of the majority party) said that the PAC had been effective during the fourth parliament ( ) primarily because it had a minority party chair. An important development in the last parliament was the opening up of PAC hearings to the media and the public. With the support of the Parliamentary Centre, and with the widely acknowledged (by survey respondents) leadership of the then chair, Hon. Samuel Sallas-Mensah, PAC hearings were both public and held in different regions of the

5 338 RICK STAPENHURST AND RICCARDO PELIZZO country factors that respondents told us contributed significantly to the effectiveness of the committee. In a now famous case emerging from its first public hearing in October 2007, the PAC ordered the Ministry of Tourism and two advertising agencies to refund 53 million Ghana cedis and US $2,500 to the government, including interest accruing on the amounts. 1 The PAC sitting was prompted by an Auditor General report that revealed financial discrepancies in the accounts of the Ministry of Tourism since At the public hearing, the PAC members concluded that the Minister of Tourism and the Chief Director of the ministry were unable to satisfy the committee about the disbursement of funds allegedly paid for advertisements. In a November 2008 news conference, the chairman of the PAC reported that the committee had so far recovered U.S. $40 million. More generally, respondents also noted a longer term trend of increased PAC effectiveness; said one, There has been a dramatic change for the better; in 1993/6 there were no testimonies given to the committee, since 1997 there have been. We asked respondents about the effectiveness of legislative committees in uncovering instances of fraud and corruption. Respondents generally rated the oversight committees as fairly effective in uncovering incidents of fraud and corruption (see Table 1), with a mean score of 3.2 on a scale of 1 5, where 1 = very ineffective and 5 = very effective. Interestingly, journalists reported somewhat more success (mean of 3.8) than the MPs themselves (3.3) or parliamentary staff (3.2) although civil society representatives reported significantly less (2.4). One senior member of the PAC commented that... the PAC can only be successful in tackling petty [bureaucratic] corruption and that, if the Committee tried to investigate cases of grand corruption, party discipline would be invoked to ensure that the majority [governing] party MPs on the Committee would squash enquiries. TABLE 1 Perceived Effectiveness of Oversight Tools Survey Question Mean Score Std Dev. How effective are oversight committees in uncovering incidents of fraud and corruption? How effective are special committees/ commissions of inquiry in uncovering incidents of fraud and corruption? How effective is the question period in uncovering incidents of fraud and corruption? What is the degree of partisanship within legislative oversight committees? How strong is majority (governing) political party cohesion? Note: Scale of 1 5, where 1 = very ineffective/weak and 5 = very effective/strong.

6 IMPROVING DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GHANA 339 The challenge for Public Accounts and other oversight committees is that they do not have prosecutorial powers. A variety of follow-up mechanisms were described by respondents. Some said that the committees make recommendations to the parliament, often calling on the parties involved to make amends and/or be prosecuted. Others said that the committees findings are transmitted to the Attorney General s (AG) department for prosecution, referred to the police for investigation, or to the anticorruption agency. A problem arises in that the AG doubles as a Minister of State and principal legal counselor to the government and thus is part of the executive branch and, at the same time, is responsible for prosecutions emanating from the investigations of parliament and its committees. In short, some respondents said the contribution of the AG to parliamentary oversight is dampened by the perception that the office is not independent; they were of the opinion that some cases were not prosecuted possibly because of political interference and influence. Parliament has, on occasion, appointed special or ad hoc commissions of inquiry to investigate incidences of corruption. The most famous example of a special committee in Parliament is the Committee on Poverty Alleviation (the committee is now a standing committee in parliament). Survey respondents provide a generally positive evaluation of the performance of special committees (see Table 1), with a scores of 3.8, indicating their somewhat effective performance in uncovering incidences of fraud and corruption. In short, the PAC and other oversight committees are able to perform their functions because they are constitutionally empowered to access information and subpoena witnesses. By holding public hearings and allowing media access, the committees have increased incentives for greater scrutiny. The composition and selection of committee members demonstrates a tendency toward independence and autonomy that is applauded by experts (see, e.g., Wang 2005). While committee resources are limited, ties have been developed with policy think tanks and input from the public encouraged. Finally, although partisanship is strong in parliament, the collective interest of MPs in PAC seems to supersede party affiliation at the committee level, which has helped make the committees powerful vehicles in the oversight process. Review of Appointments Parliament plays a key role in confirming the appointment the chairs of state institutions, heads of independent authorities, ministers, deputy ministers, and Supreme Court judges. Our findings point to a deliberately coordinated effort between parliament and the president s office to avoid embarrassing the president by rejecting his nominations, except in rare controversial cases. Our analysis shows that the Appointments Committee rigorously applies the mechanisms defined in the standing orders for

7 340 RICK STAPENHURST AND RICCARDO PELIZZO TABLE 2 Frequency with Which Certain Tasks Are Performed by the Parliament Survey Question Mean Score Std. Dev. How frequently does the legislature review appointments? How frequently does the legislature censure ministers/the president? Note: Scale of 1 5, where 1 = never and 5 = always. reviewing and approving the appointments of ministers and, according to survey respondents, does this quite often (see Table 2). In theory, the committee can reject a nominee s appointment and recommend that parliament do the same. However, respondents revealed that this is not common practice. Rather, the debate on a nominee signals to the president the status of the nomination rather than face rejection, in a few cases, the president has withdrawn the nominee, and very few rejections have actually occurred. The process by which nominees are approved by parliament was criticized by some respondents. They indicated that not enough background research is conducted to establish the credibility of the nominees, while others said that adverse public input has not always stopped the approval of nominees. The grounds for disapproval have often been legal for example, a nominee not being a registered voter or holding dual citizenship. As a result, critics of the process described it as ceremonial and inadequate. By contrast, other respondents think that it has teeth they contend that nominees are grilled, their professional backgrounds checked, and committee hearings are open to the public. Overall, there seemed to be a consensus, however, that the process of review has strengthened in recent years. Questions used to be about voter IDs and constitutional qualifications..., said one respondent,... now [MPs ask] about ethics and morality. If a nominee is not [judged to be] competent, the committee will eliminate him or her. It has to be recognized, however, that this newfound rigor in reviewing appointments has not yet spread to the censuring of errant ministers. In responding to our field survey, respondents gave a mean score was 1.7 (where 1 = never and 5 = always), suggesting that censure was a rarely used oversight tool; see Table 2. Indeed, respondents indicated that no motion of censure had been adopted in the last 10 years. There are two possible explanations for this: First, under the hybrid system in Ghana, the president is required by the constitution to nominate ministers from parliament. Strategically, the president usually co-opts active MPs by nominating them for ministerial assignments. Apart from inducing them to switch their allegiance from the legislature to the executive, the selection of the effective MPs denies parliament some of its best

8 IMPROVING DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GHANA 341 legislators. Besides, MPs have, over the years, built very strong collegial relationships with their peers, and these informal relationships tend to trump the formal institutional infrastructure ushered in by the constitution. Previous research demonstrates that constitutional powers are insufficient in determining the powers of the legislature (Norton 1998; Olson and Norton 1996; Patzelt 1994) because of the incongruity between formal and actual powers (Wang 2005). Formal definitions (de jure) do not always translate into practice and formal institutions in Africa often lack effective authority because of deeply personalized authority (Chabal and Daloz 1999). In addition, the tendency to override formal institutions has been enabled by a weak legal system (Bratton 2007). The second reason (for parliament s inability to censor ministers) is that Ghana has, to date, experienced a unified government (in contrast to a divided government) in which both the executive and legislature is controlled by the same party. The allegiance of MPs in the ruling party is more to the executive than to parliament, and they are reluctant to embarrass the government and, by extension, their party, whose patronage they require in order to contest elections and hold their seats. The election of MPs in Ghana is party centered; party cohesion and party discipline are both very strong. Parliamentary Oversight and Legitimacy Given the greater activism and the greater effectiveness of parliament and parliamentary committees in performing their oversight function, it is not surprising that parliament is regarded as a highly trusted institution. According to the most recent Afrobarometer survey, public confidence in the parliament of Ghana is strong. Electoral turnout is high (73% in 2008) and nearly half of respondents knew the name of their MP. More than half of Ghanaians believe their country to be a full democracy while a further 39% believe it to be a democracy with minor (28%) or major (11%) problems. Of Ghanaians, 83% would either strongly disapprove or disapprove of parliament being abolished so that the president could decide everything. Of Ghanaians, 62% reported at least some or a lot of trust in parliament, behind the president (75%) and the Electoral Commission (66%) but above the Local Assembly (53%), the police (46%), and the law courts (63%). Similarly, the public believed MPs to be less corrupt than local and national government officials, local government councilors, the police, tax officials, and judges/magistrates but more corrupt than health workers, teachers, or the president and officials in his office (see Table 3). What Makes Parliament Work Better? Respondents provided several answers as to why the Parliament of Ghana has been so effective in performing oversight activities. One such reason is

9 342 RICK STAPENHURST AND RICCARDO PELIZZO TABLE 3 How Many of the Following People Do You Think Are Involved in Corruption? Most/All Some Total President and officials in his office Members of parliament Local government councilors National government officials Police Tax officials Judges and magistrates Source: Afrobarometer 2008 Survey, July Available online at afrobarometer.org. Note: % of respondents, n = 1,200. that partisanship at the committee level as opposed to parliament as a whole is weak, scoring a mean of 2.3 on a scale of 1 5, where 1 = very weak and 5 = very strong (see Table 1), thereby permitting a more collegial atmosphere for deliberation. Interestingly, MPs considered there to be less partisanship than did parliamentary staff, civil society representatives, and journalists. Various reasons were offered for the absence of partisanship at the committee level. Some interviewees thought that at the committee level, national interest is supreme and MPs are more oriented toward achieving broad national goals than parochial party interests. But also suggested were issues of collegiality, resulting from working together in small groups on issues. The relative absence of partisanship at the committee level is worthy of further investigation. Respondents indicated that in a few cases, partisanship overshadowed the work of committees. This suggests that there may be triggers of partisanship at the committee level. Although we did not probe our respondents for what these triggers might be, our document search suggests that partisanship may coincide with issues before the House, permitting the minority to use visible national issues to distinguish itself from the majority ruling party. The conclusion that the effectiveness of committees and committee work is inversely related to the level of partisanship or, to put it in a different way, partisanship is detrimental to the success of oversight activities, was indirectly confirmed by our findings on what makes special/ad hoc committees work well. Even in this respect, our respondents provided a mixed evaluation of the performance of special committees. Their general impression is that the effectiveness of committees depends on their composition: They are effective when evenly composed of members of both parties but ineffective when packed with members of the majority party. A second factor that facilitates the success of legislative oversight paradoxically is that the Parliament of Ghana lacks adequate resources and

10 IMPROVING DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GHANA 343 research staff. To compensate for this lack of in-house resources, many parliamentary committees and individual MPs and have ties to policy think tanks; those mentioned include the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Institute for Democratic Governance, Legal Resources Centre, Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Canada Investment Fund for Africa, Country Environmental Analysis (CEA), the Faculty of Law University of Ghana, and the Parliamentary Centre of Canada The African Poverty Reduction Network. These think tanks contribute to enhancing the knowledge of MPs and parliamentary staff through workshops and seminars on proposed policies and issues that come before committees. This nexus between MPs, parliamentary staff, and think tanks often leads to an opening up of the policy process to the public and greater interaction between MPs and civil society groups. Often, the policy think tanks will organize parliamentary civil society forums to facilitate public interaction on proposed policy changes, for example, the asset declaration law, education on conflict of interest law, and African Union/United Nations convention on corruption were supported by ISODEC, CEA, Faculty of Law University of Ghana, respectively. Recently, ISODEC assisted MPs by preparing background articles, policy analysis, soliciting civic input, and explaining technical points, for example, the work on the Millennium Challenge Account bill. MPs are also assisted by these groups to improve their oversight duties through field visits. A note of caution must be sounded. Many of these think tanks are committed to particular issue areas ranging from economics, law, poverty alleviation, social development, water, environment, etc., and it is possible that MPs are only receiving input from well-organized advocacy groups. By organizing seminars for MPs, these organizations are able not only to inform MPs but also to lobby them to support legislation in particular issue areas. The third condition that facilitated the successful performance of legislative oversight is represented by what might be called demand for good governance. Lindberg and Zhou (2009) argued that after relatively strong and increasing oversight during the period 1992 through about 2000, the Ghanaian parliament s oversight and other functions vis-à-vis the executive function weakened as a result of both structural factors and persons involved. Our assessment suggests a reversal in this apparent decline. The PAC became active, more public, and is believed to be increasingly more effective. Similarly, the vetting process of ministerial appointments, also widely reported in both the press and by broadcast media, is bringing the issue of parliamentary oversight to the fore, while question period appears to be becoming more substantive and is attracting media coverage. One respondent claimed that... increased media coverage of parliament and especially PAC public hearings is resulting in citizens demanding more from

11 344 RICK STAPENHURST AND RICCARDO PELIZZO their MPs which is causing MPs to sit up and deliver, and this, in turn, creates the conditions for more effective oversight. Conclusions By focusing on what makes legislative oversight effective in Ghana, this research note has addressed some of the issues that were not adequately addressed by the first wave of studies in comparative constitutional engineering. While the first generation of comparative constitutional engineers generally argued that only macro-institutions matter, we have shown that meso-institutions matter as well. The success of Ghana in overseeing the executive, curbing/preventing corruption, and improving governance as well as increasing the legitimacy of the Fourth Republic are not only determined by the form of government (macro-institutions) but also by the fact that the legislature puts a variety of oversight tools (meso-level institutions) placed at its disposal to good use. Hence, we believe that the first lesson to be learned from our research is that meso-level institutions are more important than previously acknowledged, although we caution that the importance of meso-level institutions should not be exaggerated. As Pelizzo and Stapenhurst (2004a, 2004b, 2006) note, the range of oversight tools at the disposal of a legislature only determines that legislature s oversight potential but is by itself insufficient to ensure that such oversight potential is translated into actual oversight or effective oversight. We believe the second lesson that can be drawn from this research is that it is possible to detect a positive relationship between an increase in legislative oversight activities and the reputation of parliament and its members, the legitimacy of democracy and political institutions, and the success in curbing/preventing corruption. In fact, we were able to show that as the amount of oversight activities performed by the legislature increased (or at least was perceived to be increasing by our respondents), so did the reputation and the legitimacy of parliament. We note, however, that while parliament became more active in certain areas (e.g., confirmation of appointments), in other areas parliament s activity has either not increased (censure on ministers) or the increase of activity performed came at the expense of quality of the activity (number of parliamentary questions asked). This raises serious questions as to the parliament s ability to perform these tasks effectively. This leads to the third lesson of our research, namely, that institutions, regardless of whether they are macro or meso, do not operate in a vacuum and that their successful functioning depends, as Rockman (1984) observed long ago, on the presence/absence of specific contextual conditions. 2 With regard to the success of legislative oversight in Ghana, we identified three such conditions: a relatively low level of partisanship at the committee level, parliament s ability to find alternative sources of information, and the demand for good governance.

12 IMPROVING DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GHANA 345 Whether and how far these lessons can travel are questions well beyond the scope of this research note but are questions that should be examined in a more appropriate comparative setting. Acknowledgment The authors would like to acknowledge the invaluable support and suggestions from Kerry Jacobs, professor at Australian National University, and field support given by Rasheed Draman, Director Parliamentary Centre (Africa Programs), and Michael Alandu. Notes 1. Interestingly, public disgust with the government, prompted by the Public Accounts Committee s (PAC) public hearing, led the government to terminate live broadcasts of the PAC on the state-run television channel. However, the proliferation of private television and radio stations in the country permitted continuous live broadcasts of the hearings. The government reversed its order and sought to associate itself with the decision to hold public hearings as further proof of its zero-tolerance policy on corruption. 2. Effective oversight may depend on the specific oversight powers given to the parliament, on whether the parliament has the ability to modify legislation (Loewenberg and Patterson 1979), on whether parliaments and parliamentarians are given proper information to perform their oversight tasks adequately (Frantzich 1979), on the role of individual MPs, on the role of committee chairs, on the saliency of issues, and on how aggressively the opposition performs its role (Rockman 1984). References Ayensu, Kodwo B., and Samuel N. Darkwa How Our Parliament Functions: An Introduction to the Law, Practice and Procedure of the Parliament of Ghana. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Bratton, Michael The Democracy Barometers: Formal versus Informal Institutions in Africa. Journal of Democracy 18 (3): Chabal, Patrick, and Jean-Pascal Daloz Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument. London: James Currey. Frantzich, Stephen E Computerized Information Technology in the US House of Representatives. Legislative Studies Quarterly 4 (2): Lindberg, Staffan I., and Yongmei Zhou The Rise and Decline of Parliament in Ghana. In Legislatures in Emerging Democracies, ed. Joel Barkan. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner. Loewenberg, Gerhard, and Samuel C. Patterson Comparing Legislatures. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co. Norton, Philip Introduction: The Institution of Parliaments. In Parliaments and Governments in Western Europe, Vol. 1, ed. Philip Norton. London: Frank Cass. Olson, David, and Philip Norton The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe. London: Frank Cass.

13 346 RICK STAPENHURST AND RICCARDO PELIZZO Patzelt, Werner J A Framework for Comparative Parliamentary Research in Eastern and Central Europe. In The Emergence of East Central European Parliaments: The First Steps, ed. Attila Agh. Budapest: Hungarian Center of Democracy Studies Foundation. Pelizzo, Riccardo Public Accounts Committees in the Pacific Region. Politics and Policy 38 (1): Pelizzo, Riccardo, and Frederick Stapenhurst. 2004a. Legislatures and Oversight: A Note. Quaderni di Scienza Politica 11 (1): b. Tools for Legislative Oversight Policy. World Bank Research Working Paper, Washington, DC Democracy and Oversight. Paper presented at the 102nd annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, August 31 September The Distribution of Oversight Tools in the Lower Chambers: A Comparative Analysis. Paper presented at the ninth workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians, Wroxton College, Oxfordshire, July Rockman, Bert Legislative Executive Relations and Legislative Oversight. Legislative Studies Quarterly 9 (3): Wang, Vibeke The Accountability Function of Parliament in New Democracies. Tanzanian Perspectives Christer Michelsen Institute Working Paper 2005:2, Bergen.