By: Jake Moore

During the last week of July, my internship took me to the Parliament House of Ghana with our parliamentary correspondent Agnes. The first day was a little bit nerve-wracking.

Sunday night as I was winding down and relaxing with the group while simultaneously preparing myself for the next week of work, Agnes sent me a text over WhatsApp. “Jake, Please meet me in Parliament at 9:00am.”

Now, to be honest my first thought was that I would no longer be able to sleep in the next morning. Bummer. But of course, there were also eager butterflies in my stomach. Political reporting isn’t exactly my dream job, but it’s hard not to get excited about going to cover the lawmakers of an entire country.

It was extra exciting because Agnes told me two weeks earlier that there would be a media review of the government budget this week. Given the economic struggles of the global economy right now and the way it has impacted many democratic leaders, I knew this would be a big deal.

In preparation for parliament, I donned my most formal attire. Brown dress shoes, khaki pants, a blue linen shirt, and my only tie. It’s black and white checkered and made of normal cloth. Nothing fancy.

I arrived at the front gate around 9am since taxis aren’t allowed to drive onto the campus. The guard at the gate asked about my business in Parliament and seemed a little amused by me. I then made the long but beautiful walk down a tree-lined road to the center of the parliamentary campus. I had to ask security guards a few questions to find the building that actually housed the parliament chamber, but found it eventually.

After finding the building and a phone call to Agnes I made it inside and got my visitor badge. Agnes brought me upstairs to where you could access the different galleries as well as the press office. After a brief tour around she brought me to the public gallery. There was a press gallery of course, but as an intern, I have no media credentials and so I would be hanging out in the public gallery.

Before leaving me to get situated Agnes reminded me that parliament was supposed to start at 10am, but it wasn’t unusual for them to start late. That seemed fine to me. I was in the middle of a good book and didn’t mind a little extra time to read while I waited for the Members of Parliament to Arrive. But I didn’t know how long I would be waiting.

At 10 am an alarm went off to signal the scheduled start of the session and a bit later the words Mr. Speaker played over all the speakers in the room. The whole room stands as the speaker of Parliament enters the room and takes his seat.

At this point still very few MP’s were in the chamber. The speaker officially started the session and then approved the previous session’s agenda with the MP’s that were present. Once again he left and I went back to reading. After a little while, Agnes visited me again and informed me that the session wouldn’t start until 1pm.

Unsurprisingly I finished my book that day. I waited for a little under four hours for parliament to start and once it did start the finance minister was still absent. This session would be a media review of the budget and the finance minister was supposed to deliver a presentation. The speaker announced another twenty-minute suspension while they waited for the finance minister.

Well finally the finance minister did arrive and he gave his presentation. It lasted over an hour and covered the financial events of the current president’s entire term including the struggles included with recent events.

The opposition party, the NDC, doesn’t like the excuses that the ruling party, the NPP, gives for the struggling economy. They cite many international issues like COVID and the Russian and Ukraine war as causes of Ghanaian economic problems. The instant that the minister finished the chamber erupted with the sounds of the NDC beating their desks in rhythm and chanting “Resign”.

In response, the NPP stood in unison and began singing. This was not a quick flash of emotion. Instead, it lasted close to five minutes. It seems the speaker knew that any attempt to restore order immediately would be pointless and so he waited until the MP’s started to get tired before calling everyone’s attention back.

This was in stark contrast to what I had seen in the US of course. Sometimes congresspeople in the US do get a little flustered, but this was something else altogether. I thought I had seen something special for about an hour until I asked Agnes and she informed me that this was not uncommon for the Parliament House of Ghana.

This was just the beginning of a great week in Parliament during which I witnessed a small program about civil democratic society led by the speaker of parliament, intense debates between the parties about absent MP’s and cacao imports, adjusting timelines for connecting villages to the national power grid and lastly but not least a press conference about the Ghana Card, a very hot button issue in Ghanaian politics.