By Grace Q. Bryant
Naymote for Democratic Development’s maiden edition report says of the 416 regular sessions the House of Representatives, nearly half 41.58% were held in secret making it inaccessible to the public and the press.
In the Legislature rules number 3.2 it says, “When acting upon confidential or executive business, the same is considered executive session, the House Chambers shall be cleared of all persons; save the Chief Clerk and the Sergeant at Arms.”
While rule 3.3 in addition states, “Whenever the injunction of secrecy shall be removed from any part of the proceedings of the House in Executive Session or Secret Legislative Session, the order of the House removing the same shall be entered by the Chief Clerk of the House in the House’s Journal, and shall be published in the public.”
Over the weekend, Naymote released its first edition of its Legislative Digest, a quarterly publication, which assesses the Legislature in the performance of its core functions such as accountability and the level of transparency.
The maiden edition which covers the period January 2018 to May 2022, is aimed at fostering legislative openness, responsiveness and accountability but observed that this huge number of secret sessions essentially shielded the Legislative sessions from the public and made it impossible for citizens to follow the debate and hold their legislators accountable for views expressed and decisions made in those sessions.
According to statistics obtained from the period under review, the House of Representatives recorded 243 regular sittings between 2018 and 2021, devoid of special and extraordinary sittings.
Shockingly, they also held 173 Executive/Secret sittings during the same period where there were 70 short of the regular sittings while the House had 173 deliberations not opened to the public and that the contents therefrom were not accessible to the public.
The Executive Director of Naymote, Eddie Jarwolo, furthered that during the same period, the House of Representatives passed 173 bills, 36% of which were executive bills- bills submitted from the office of the President and that only 71 public hearing were organized.
“By the end of 2022, taxpayers would have spent about USD 174.7 million from the fiscal year 2019/2020 to 2022 on the Legislature but the Legislature has not presented reports on its finances and expenditures and demands from the public for an independent audit of that body have yielded no result,” the report revealed.
The report noted that in spite of the huge financial support to the Legislature, the body has no official publication on its activities or an official website for public information.
The assessment did not also find any voting record, making it nearly impossible for citizens to track the legislative and voting decisions of their elected representatives and it was similarly impossible to access reports of ministries and agencies at the Legislature mainly because the ministries and agencies have not been submitting periodic reports to that body since 2018.
This report further indicated that the Legislature has been derelict in exercising its oversight responsibilities over the Executive branch.
The institution believes that a strong and functional Legislature is crucial for the advancement of democracy and development, but the state of affairs of the 54th Legislature, as the report shows, is wanting of crucial reforms.
