Members of Parliament from African countries which are members of the Common Wealth Parliamentary Association – Africa Region have said that there is a need to improve in the way they oversee Government activities.

They were speaking on November 25, during the 17th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC) - Africa Region, which will focus on, among other topics, retooling Parliaments for effective and efficient oversight.

The conference which was opened on November 24, 2021, by President Paul Kagame, at Kigali Convention Centre, is expected to be concluded on Friday, November 25.

Based on the experience of Rwanda, MP Furaha Emma Rubagumya, Chairperson of the Committee on Political Affairs and Gender at Rwanda's Chamber of Deputies moved a motion on the topic "Retooling Parliaments for effective and efficient oversight.”

MPs said that retooling Parliaments for effective and efficient oversight - revising and reorganising their mechanisms for the purpose of improving oversight - yields good governance, which ensures economic growth and ensures sustainable development.

They also called for the eradication of poverty and hunger that have been rampant on the continent.

Rubagumya said that the Parliament of Rwanda has been exercising oversight according to the constitution and other relevant legislation. However, she said, "the need to retool parliamentary oversight becomes vivid as we progress."

She observed that the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was established [in 2010] with the duty to conduct in-depth analysis of reports by the Auditor General .

Moreover, she said, PAC drafts recommendations which, upon adoption by the Plenary Sitting of the Chamber of Deputies, are given to the Government for implementation purposes to address public assets mismanagement cases.

As a result of collaboration with stakeholders [in oversight], Rubagumya said that there has been a remarkable performance in public finance management where institutions that got "clean audit reports” since the establishment of PAC have increased from 9 percent in 2010 up to 56 percent in 2020.

A clean audit report is a report that is issued when the Auditor [General] determines that each of the financial records provided by an entity is free of any misrepresentations and it is in compliance with the standards known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). It is the best type of report a business can receive.

Rubagumya said that the abovementioned session was the opportune time to deliberate on such a topic as Governments are required to move fast, utilise resources efficiently, embrace accountable governance and socioeconomic development of their people.

"It was high time that they [Parliaments] did it [oversight] differently to improve practices and improve services for the community, and for socioeconomic development of their countries,” she said.

Among the proposed ideas by MPs, there is that since most of the oversight roles by Members of Parliament at the Committee level, at the time of allocating MPs to different Committees, there is the need to emphasise their qualifications relating to the committees they are allocated to.  

This will enable the MPs to critically look at the document that is presented to them, which can help improve oversight role.

Ndaisaba George Ruhoro, Member of Parliament from Tanzania said that citizens need services, such as access to quality water all the time, good roads and electricity, recalling that, in many countries, it is the Executive that it is in charge of providing services to them.

At the same time, he said, it is the Executive that is collecting tax from the same people.

"So, here comes a need for balancing power,” he said.

In Tanzania, he said, the Parliament has two standing committees that are overseeing public funds – one responsible for Local Government, another for Central Government – explaining that they have similar roles but in different thematic areas.

Senator Abba Moro of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria said that generally in Africa, there is a problem of corruption. And, given the fragility of the practice of democracy in Africa, he said he thinks "it also becomes necessary for us to strengthen the Parliaments by making concrete legal provisions for the empowerment of the Parliaments.”

He indicated that this is a very serious issue when it comes to their parliamentary practices.

"Sometimes we indulge ourselves so much to the level of partisanship that we do not take obvious directions on what to do because of the party that we belong to,” he observed.

All in all, legislators said that the success of the Parliamentary oversight role will first depend on voting the competent people to represent the citizens in the House of Representatives, arguing that nepotism and favouritsm can only weaken Parliaments.