The Illusion of Our Present Parliamentary Representation - We Can Do Better.

Byline: Leonard Shang-Quartey

This week I intend dealing with an important issue that came up most recently for public discussions with implications for citizens' access to basic social services and these are placed on Ghana's priority list. The issue that I refer to animated David Easton's definition of politics which is very popular with many freshmen political science students. Easton defined politics as the "authoritative allocation of values." The definition highlights the allocative powers of the polity represented by Government.

The 2011 supplementary budget presented by the Minister of Finance to the Parliament of Ghana in June 2011 and issues generated by the said budget clearly demonstrates the allocative preeminence of Government; whether or not Government uses this power in the true interest of citizens is another question. But supposing such powers are not being exercised in the interest of citizens is there a way that this power could be tempered? For instance questions have been raised about the supplementary budget as to why only GHc7 million Cedis was allocated for the eradication of schools under trees and GHc 20 million to the Eco Brigade Programme. The democratic framework provides enough checks on the use of the allocative powers of Government. The challenge however, is that we are yet to realize the full operation of some of these democratic …