It is well recognized that last year was marred by a range of difficulties, but decisive movements steps have been registered that will potentially contributed a lot to the nation. It was indeed trying time for the House of Peoples’ Representatives, too. COVID-19 pandemic has impacted negatively the activities of the highest law making body of the country as it has reflected in other institutions and sector offices.
Members of the parliament (MPs) held hot debates on: postponement of the national elections scheduled to be held on August 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic and constitutional interpretation on three articles of the constitution; postponement of the 4th National Population and Housing Census and other related issues.
It was revealed that the coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected the House’s program and timetable as well as its day-to-day activities towards hitting its mission.
Presenting House’s one year performance report to the members of the parliament, Deputy House Speaker, Shitaye Minale, said that the House began parliament reform to make its procedural approach compatible with the national reform agenda. “Last year, different researches were done on selected sectors and a program office has been established to ensure better performance of the House’s overall procedures.”
According to her, the program office has five technique committees – lawmaking, supervision and monitoring, public representation, communication and information, finance and procurement – and each committee has members from MPs, House’s office, and external experts.
A manual is being prepared to examine and modernize House’s legislative system and a team of legal experts has been set up to help the House scrutinize its legislative system, she noted.
She further stated that the House is preparing a guidebook to evaluate performances of executive bodies, judicial bodies, and other federal institutions, and to identify and address strategic problems.
She elaborated that two studies are being made to find solutions to administration and performance shortcomings. The first one is formulating Public Participation Enforcement Procedure Guideline and conducting a research regarding the representative role of the House is the second one. Parliament’s Research and Study Network was established in collaborating with various research institutes and universities.
Responding to questions posed by The Ethiopian Herald, House Speaker Tagesse Chaffo said that the handbook takes the experience of other countries in monitoring and supervising the overall activities of executive bodies into account. “It will be implemented next year, and helps us standardize our monitoring and supervision activities.”
He also reiterated that one of the major weaknesses of the executive bodies is project delays as identified by the House during supervision. The issuance of the guidebook will help us improve and strengthen our supervision and monitoring of projects, he stated.
According to him, lawmaking is one of the main functions of the House granted by the constitution, he said adding that examining and modernizing our legislative system is one of the areas on which we have focused. “The House is preparing a guide to improve its legislative system which helps to examine how well proclamation enforcement rules and regulations are in line with the proclamations.
Various parliament diplomacy works have been carried out principally to keep the interests of our country, he said adding that efforts have been made to change misunderstandings among the international community about the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and to inform them regarding Ethiopia’s firm stance.
As stated in its annual report, the House approved a total of 59 proclamations including loan and cooperation agreements. It also approved 12 final decisions separately and one final decision in conjugation with the House of Federation.
“The House is arduously working to apply a viable reform on its entire system with a view to standardizing all its activities,” he indicated.
The Ethiopian Herald July 31/2020
BY ABDUREZAK MOHAMMED
