The national reform program is reflected in day to day activities of the House of Peoples Representatives.
Introduction
The House of Peoples Representatives (HPR) has the mandate to make laws and to oversight the execute branch of the government derived from the constitution. In addition to these, the constitution provides other authorities and activities to House, about its working procedures and members’ working ethics among others.
The objective of this article is to explain about how the House delivers its responsibilities in the accomplished budget year; particularly, it focuses on introducing the activities of the general assembly to the reader.
On capacity building
In order to ensure the public benefits that emanated from the mandates of the House, it delivered its duties based on members’ experience and knowledge.
To strengthen its activities, capacity building works have been done helpful to improving the council working environment. The formation of various committee and their activities and responsibilities are craved in line with the government reform directions.
The number of the committee members reduced from 20 to 10 and with that enabled to achieve tangible results by avoiding duplication of works and improving resource allocations.
In addition, the supervision team is established led by the speaker of the house in which it aimed to help the rehabilitation of the evicted people due to ethnic violence in various parts of the country. Moreover, it sued the culprits to face justice and scored effective results.
The supervision committee put accountable culprits who are suspected of corruption based on the audit findings.
Various committee members signed agreements with several institutions of the executive branches of the government for the smooth oversighting procedures. Moreover, training had been offered to the members only to be loyal to their conscious rather than other external factors.
Legislation
Members of the House of Peoples Representatives should be strengthening their emerging culture of being loyal to their conscious rather than their parties.
Based on the members working procedures and ethics, the law making work is divided by four categories.
The first activity of the House in replacing the existing law concerning the activities of the executive branch of the government by new one is carried out by replacing the proclamation number 916/2008 to proclamation number 1,097/2011.
Replacing the former by the new one has its own objectives
One of the objectives is pursuing new structure that would enable to sustain nation’s reform journey; and the second one is accomplishing the second growth and transformation plan without any delay.
Downsizing the number of executive branch of the government offices is also carried out. Other institutions which have similar duties are unified with other institutions that enable them to deliver their duties efficiently.
Such measure also helps to strengthen their execution capacity and to avoid duplication of authorities and duties.
The roles of the supervising authorities and ownership is separated in order to make public profit making institutions competent and deliver their duties and to create an enabling environment for them.
The measure also proved that the institutions which deliver their duties efficiently while they are working under the auspicious of other entities rather than under the prime minister office.
Nevertheless, institutions which are given a mission from the Prime Minister Office or to the House of Peoples Representatives are reorganized based on their previous responsibilities.
To sustain the ongoing reform, heavy responsibility is given to the Ministry of Peace. It has an authority to promote Ethiopian identity and Ethiopianism in line with unity in diversity through accommodating ethnic, religious and linguistic difference.
To that end, it formulates strategies and implements programs. It has also a mandate to work in ensuring rule of law and to expand peace and stability all over the country and in the horn at large.
It also works on promoting democratization, mutual respect, tolerance and Ethiopian culture among the societies. Coordinating for the promotion of the existing culture is helpful to sustain religious and moral values. In addition, it has a responsibility to curb crises before developing in to ethnic conflicts.
Till now, the House of Peoples Representatives could unify various institutions which have similar and duplicated authorities and reduced others to the lower entities.
In the new reform, the Public Service and the Human Development, the Office of Government Communication Affairs, the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, and the Ministry of Public Enterprises are among the ministries whose authorities are reduced to commission level.
Such kind of measures proved to make the working environment easy and made them efficient. Among the ministries which are unified, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Science and Technology, and the Transport and Information Technology, the Construction and Urban Development can be mentioned.
More existing laws are improved
Improved laws are expected to play crucial role.
The proclamation for the establishment of Civic and Charity Organizations is improved and the new one enables to ensure citizens the right to association. In addition, the proclamation allows international non-governmental organizations to involve in advocacy works.
The responsible body to study and submit the report to the House of Peoples Representatives is the Law, Justice and Democracy Standing Committee. It explained the weak part of the previous laws and provided its recommendation.
The new laws allow the civic associations to spend whatever amount of money legally earned to spend as they need to meet their goals. It also addressed questions raised by citizens and the international communities at large.
The Ethiopian Herald Saturday 28 September 2019
BY ABEBE WOLDE GIORGIS
