Addis Ababa University

School of Graduate Studies

College of Business and Economics
Department of Public Administration and Development Management

The Practice of Policy Making process in Ethiopia:

The Case of HPR

By Atsbeha Aregawi

June 2012
Addis Ababa
 Addis Ababa University
School of Graduate Studies
College of Business and Economics
Department of Public Administration and Development Management

The Practice of Policy Making process in Ethiopia:

The Case of HPR

By: Atsbeha Aregawi

Approved by Examiners:
Costantinos Berhutesfa(PhD) _______________ ________________
Thesis advisor signature date
_______________________ ______________ ______________
External examiner signature date
_______________________ ______________ ______________
Internal examiner signature date

i
 The Practice of Policy Making process in Ethiopia:
The Case of HPR

By Atsbeha Aregawi

A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Public Administration and Development

Management

Prepared in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of

Masters in Public Management and Policy (MPMP)

Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

June 2012

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 Declaration
I, the undersigned, declare that this thesis is my original work and has not been presented or
submitted partially or in full by any other person for a degree in any other university, and that all
sources of materials used for the purpose of this thesis have been duly acknowledged.

Declared by: Confirmed by Advisor

Name: Atsebaha Aregawi Name: Costantinos BT. (Ph.D)
Signature______________________ Signature_____________________
Date__________________________ Date_________________________

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Contents Page
Chapter One .................................................................................................................................... 1
1.Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Statement of the Problem and Research Questions ...................................................... 2

1.2 Objectives of the Study .................................................................................................. 3

1.3 Scope of the Study .......................................................................................................... 4

Chapter Two ................................................................................................................................... 5

2. Literature Review ....................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Country Profile................................................................................................................ 5

2.2 Definitions of Concepts and Terms ................................................................................ 6

2.3 Background ..................................................................................................................... 8

a. Members of the Houses ................................................................................................. 11

b. Powers and Functions of the Houses ............................................................................. 12
c. General Structure of the Ethiopian Legislature .............................................................. 15
2.4 Policy and Law Making ................................................................................................. 18

2.5 Policy and Oversight ..................................................................................................... 19

2.6 Initiation of Bills ............................................................................................................ 20

2.7 MPs’ Freedom of Speech .............................................................................................. 21

2.8 Public Participation and Policy Making ........................................................................ 22

2.9 Representation Function (Constituency Service) ......................................................... 23

2.10 The Media and Policy Making .................................................................................... 25

2.11 Public Petition and Policy Making .............................................................................. 26

2.12Budget Process and Policy Making .............................................................................. 27

2.13 Resource and the Legislature ..................................................................................... 30

Chapter Three ............................................................................................................................... 31

3. Research Methods and Tools ................................................................................................... 31
3.1 Data Source and Gathering Tools ............................................................................. 31

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 3.2 Sampling Techniques .................................................................................................... 31

3.3 Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 32

3.4 Method of Data Analysis .............................................................................................. 33

Chapter Four ................................................................................................................................ 34

4. Description and Analysis ......................................................................................................... 34
4.1 The Legislative Process .......................................................................................................... 34
a.The Law Making Process.................................................................................................. 34
b.The Budget Process ......................................................................................................... 45
4.2 The Oversight Process .................................................................................................. 51

4.3 Representation Function .............................................................................................. 57

4.4 Entertaining Public Petitions and Grievances .............................................................. 59

4.5 Party Discipline ............................................................................................................. 60

4.6 Role of Media To the Function Of HPR......................................................................... 63
4.7. Resource and the Legislature ...................................................................................... 65
4.8. The General Trend of the Legislature .......................................................................... 67
Chapter Five.................................................................................................................................. 70
5. Conclusion and Recommendations ......................................................................................... 70
5.1Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………..........70
5.2 Recommendations ……………………………………………………………………. 74
References ..................................................................................................................................... 79
Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 82
Semi structured questionnaire.. ......................................................................................... 82
Interview/focus group guide ............................................................................................... 88
ለዋናው ኦዲተር መስሪያ ቤት የተዘጋጀ መጠይቅ ................................................................................ 91

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 List of Tables
Table 1. Number of MPs from each Regional State (2010/11-2014/15) ………………… 12
Table 2. Number of committee members and number of public departments
overseen by the committees 17 ………………………………………………… 17
Table 3. How far in advance of the beginning of the fiscal year, does the
executive present its budget to the legislature? ……………………………… 28

List of Figures
Figure 1: General Structure of the Ethiopian Legislature .............................................................. 15
Figure 2: Legislative Budget amendments ..................................................................................... 29
Figure 3: Gender Composition of respondents ............................................................................... 32
Figure 4: Educational level of respondents .................................................................................... 33
Figure 5: Service times of respondent MPs in the Parliament ....................................................... 33
Figure 6: the extent of scrutiny on bills in terms of allotted time and deliberation made in HPR . 38
Figure 7: Willingness of the executive departments to welcome opinions of MPs and
stakeholders .................................................................................................................... 39
Figure 8: Degree of stakeholders’ participation on legislative and oversight process in HPR ...... 40
Figure 9: Conformity of legislations to supreme laws in Ethiopia................................................. 42
Figure 10: Enacted laws, which are supported by subsidiary legislations in Ethiopia................... 43
Figure 11: Accessibility of policies and laws to the general public in Ethiopia ............................ 44
Figure 12: The extent of budget scrutiny in terms allotted time and quality ................................. 48
Figure 13: Opinion of participants on the extent of measures taken on noncompliant departments54
Figure 14: Perception of participants on relative significance of the problems of the house ........ 55
Figure 15: Opinion of participants in the overall effectiveness of oversight function of HPR ...... 56
Figure 16: Opinion of respondents on the degree of problem solving effect of representation
function .......................................................................................................................... 57
Figure 17: The relative performance of the parliamentary functions of the Ethiopian legislature 60
Figure 18: Number of MPs who faced controversial issues to take position ................................. 61
Figure 19: The respondent opinion on the extent of media support to the legislative and oversight
process in HPR ............................................................................................................... 64
Figure 20: The opinion of respondaents on the logistical and professional support in the
legislature ....................................................................................................................... 66
Figure 21: Respondents’ opinion on the general trend of the legislature in performing its
constitutional responsibilities......................................................................................... 68

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

CSA Central Statistical Agency

CSOs Civil Society Organizations
DIP Democratic Institutions Program
EC Ethiopian calendar
EACC Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission
ERCA Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority
ERTA Ethiopia Radio and Television Agency
FDRE Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
IMF International Monetary Fund
IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GTP Growth and Transformation Plan
HOF House of Federation
HPR House of People’s Representatives
HRC Human Rights Commission
IT Information Technology
MoFED Ministry of Finance and Economic Development
MPs Members of Parliament
NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
OFAG Office of Auditor General
PAC Public Accounts Committee
PM Prime Minister
PASDEP Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty
PWDs Persons With Disabilities
RPMCR Rules of Procedures and Members Code of Conduct Regulation
SNNPs Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples
TGE Transitional Government of Ethiopia
UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
UNDP United Nations Development Program
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
US United States
WBI World Bank Institute
WHO World Health Organization

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 Acknowledgements
Numerous people and institutions have contributed to the successful completion of this thesis. But
it is important to mention openly some of them for their essential support.

First and foremost, my gratitude goes to Addis Ababa University for granting me the opportunity
of fully sponsored scholarship to my study. I am also grateful to Dr. BT Costantinos, my instructor
and advisor, for his relentless and proficient advice in the whole process of working out of my
thesis.
My research work would not have been possible without the collaboration of Ato Asmelsh
W/selassie, Ato Mohamed Muhamed , Ato Nigus Lema and Ato Eshet Gebre, who have ample
knowledge of the legislature of Ethiopia and the rest of the world which I exploited through focus
group discussion.

I would thank the MPs and employees of the secretariat of the HPR who take part in the data
collection process for their candid and reliable information.

I am indebted to Ato Tsegay Berhane and Dr. Mesfin G/Michael for their consideration and effort
in editing the whole text and unreserved comment.

In the last but not least, my thank goes to W/t Etsegenet Chernet and W/t Tarik Letta for their
typing and layout support.

viii
 Abstract

The focus of this research is to identify the major problems of the policy making process of the
legislature in Ethiopian and to suggest some possible recommendations. The general objective of
the study is to examine the challenges and opportunities of the Ethiopian legislature in policy-
making process. The researcher has followed the approach of qualitative research method and has
applied purposive sampling technique. The data have been collected using structured, semi-
structured questionnaires and interviews, group discussions as well as reading materials of the
target area. It also employed descriptive and explanatory way of analysis to reveal the study result.
The finding shows that the legislature had a good start in establishing institutional and procedural
arrangements and exhibited relative improvements in the competence of MPs and standing
committees in delivering the legislative, oversight, budget scrutiny and representation functions of
the legislature. On the other hand the finding indicate that the legislature lacks an active role in its
policy making process and does not have the mechanism to capture the public attention in doing so.
The parliament has been experiencing drawbacks that hinder the quality of its policy making
process. To further improve the performance of legislative, oversight, and representation functions,
it is important to solve the shortage of trained human power, resource and time constraint and
create conducive working environment. It is also essential to promote the capability of the MPs to
advance the parliamentary debate and to increase the quality of laws adopted. Moreover, the
executive body needs to take sufficient corrective actions based on the audit findings and the
recommendations of the legislature to enhance the quality of policy making and imlementation
process.

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 Chapter One

1. Introduction

According to the Ethiopian constitution (1995), the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
follows a parliamentary system of government. There is a bicameral parliament made up of
House of Federation (HoF) and House of Peoples' Representatives (HPR), which is vested in
the federal legislative power. The Judiciary is more or less independent of the executive and the
legislature. The House of Federation has members chosen by the state assemblies to serve five-
year terms while members of the House of Peoples' Representatives are elected by direct
election. Based on the nomination of the HPR, the two houses jointly elect the president for a
six-year term.

The federal state comprises nine regional states and two self-governing administrations namely:
Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, Somali, Harari, Benishangul-gumuz, Gambela, Addis
Ababa and Dire Dawa respectively.

To paraphrase the shared mandate of the two Houses indicated by the Constitution of FDRE
(1995), the HPR and HoF jointly: elect the President of the Republic (Article 70/2), hear the
opening address of the President at the commencement of their annual session (Article 71/1),
take appropriate measures when State authorities are unable to arrest violations of human rights
within their jurisdiction and give directives to the concerned State authorities (Article 55/16),
determine by a two-thirds majority vote on the exercise of powers of taxation which have not
been specifically provided for in the Constitution(Article 99) and amending the Constitution
(Article 105/2).

As stipulated in the constitution of FDRE(1995) the House of Peoples’ Representatives:

is the highest authority of the Federal Government (Article 50/3), shall have the
power of legislation in all matters assigned by this Constitution to Federal
jurisdiction(Article 55/1), shall approve general policies and strategies of
economic, social and development, and fiscal and monetary policy of the country,

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 enact laws on matters relating to the local currency, the administration of the
National Bank, and foreign exchange(Article 55/10), shall approve the
appointment of Federal judges, members of the Council of Ministers,
commissioners, the Auditor General, and of other officials whose appointment is
required by law to be approved by it (Article 55/13), has the power to call and to
question the Prime Minister and other Federal officials and to investigate the
Executive’s conduct and discharge of its responsibilities( Article/17).
The quoted paragraph in the above shows some of the powers and functions o f the House. But
it depicts the immense importance of the HPR. The HPR possesses the ultimate power and
determines the fate of the nation. Its strengths and weaknesses that occur while performing its
duties highly affect the life of the people positively or negatively. Therefore, it is essential to
promote the strengths and to reduce the flaws that arise during its functioning. Conducting
researches related to the powers and functions of the HPR can help to that end.

The focus of this research is, therefore, to identify the major problems of the policy making
process of the House of Peoples’ Representatives (HPR) of Ethiopia in areas of law making,
oversight, budget process and representative functions and to suggest some possible
recommendations. Hence, the study is intended to examine the extent of the drawbacks of the
Ethiopian legislature in policy-making process and to identify its challenges and the
opportunities and it can contribute some input to the performance of the legislature in
discharging of its constitutional responsibilities.

1.1. Statement of the Problem and Research Questions

According to the constitution of FDRE (1995), the HPR has the mandate of law making,
oversight of government departments and perform representation activities based on
constituencies. In this regard, the 17years old legislature has made promising progress in
discharging its constitutional responsibilities and entertaining multi party parliamentary
democracy, which is the first experience in the history of the nation. Despite the encouraging
progress, the legislature, obviously, has its own limitations in exercising its duties.

However, the challenges and opportunities of policymaking process of the supreme institution
have not been researched in detail and in balanced manner as well as free of bias, so far.

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Especially, nobody has tried to identify the challenges and opportunities of policymaking
process of the Ethiopian legislature from within. The researcher, therefore, was induced that
there is a knowledge gap that has not been addressed yet in the area in question.

The Ethiopian Legislature lacks an active role in its policy making process and does not have
mechanism to capture public attention in doing so. It is important to conduct study and disclose
the challenges and opportunities of the Legislature. The researcher, therefore, will try to answer
the following questions:
1. Is sufficient time allocated for the examination of bills including the national budget
bill? Does the parliament acquire reasonable professional and logistical support to
discharge its responsibilities? Are the MPs well informed about the decisions they
made beforehand?
2. What is the degree of stakeholders’ participation in the oversight and law making
process? Do the media and civil society contribute constructive role in the policy
making process of the legislature?
3. Is party discipline and MPs’ individual freedom of speech applied in balanced
manner in the policy making process?
4. Do constituency issues get due attention in discussions of the parliament?
5. Is there any mechanism to assure that enacted laws are implemented and supported
by appropriate regulations and directives?
6. What is the reaction of the executive to the oversight findings and feed backs of the
parliament? To what extent are measures taken to correct the shortcomings of the
executive departments that are identified by the parliament?

1.2. Objectives of the Study

The general objective:

The general objective of the study is to examine the extent of the drawbacks of the
Ethiopian legislature in policy-making process and to identify its challenges and the
opportunities.
The specific objectives:
The specific objectives can be defined as follow:

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 a. To examine the context in which the Ethiopian legislature making a policy.
b. To investigate if the legislative process has budgeted enough time and has
involved public participation.
c. To assess the practicality of legislations and measures taken to make them
practical by the legislature;
d. To identify the border between the party discipline and MPs’ freedom of
expression and assess whether there is proper understanding about it.
e. To examine the impact of resource allocation to the policy making process;
f. To scrutinize the reaction of the executive to the oversight findings and feed
backs of the parliament;
g. To understand the reason why the public has discontent in legislative policy-
making process;
h. Recognize the root causes of the problems and suggest recommendations.

1.3. Scope of the Study

The study is limited to the role of the Ethiopian federal legislature (HPR) in the policy making
process. It neither covers the role of the executive and judiciary bodies nor the regional and
local legislatures in the policy making process. It is also essential to note that the time span that
the research covers is confined to the third and fourth terms of the contemporary Ethiopian
parliament.

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 Chapter Two

2. Literature Review

2.1. Country Profile

Ethiopia is a country located in the Horn of Africa with an area of 1,104,300 km2. Its capital,
Addis Ababa, is the headquarters of the African Union, and United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (UNICA). It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82
million inhabitants (CSA, 2010:1). The Ethiopian population is growing rapidly at an annual

growth rate of 2.6 % (CSA, 2007:11) equating to two million births per year. Despite having
one of the lowest proportions of urban population in the world at only 17 %, Ethiopia is rapidly
urbanizing at a high annual growth rate of 4.1 % (UNICEF, 2010). The National population is
very young with 45 % under 15 years of age. Urban unemployment rate is 18.9% at country
level and 26.9% in Addis Ababa (CSA, 2010:6).

According to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED, 2010:1-4), since
2003/04, the Ethiopian economy has been growing fast at an average rate of 11% per annum.
Agriculture, service and industry sectors contributed 41.6%, 45.5% and 12.9% respectively to
the GDP growth. Even though the Ethiopian per capita GDP is at a lower level, USD350 (IMF
2010), it is a fast growing in a similar pattern. The Gross Enrolment Rate of primary education
is 94.5% while the Net Enrolment Rate is 87.9%. The number of under graduate students in
public universities has been reached 185,788. With regard to the health care, the general health
service coverage has met 89%. The 65.8% of the rural, 91.5% of the urban and 68.5% of the
average population is being provided by potable water. In addition to this, the government has
also made a massive investment in the areas of road, power and telecommunications (MoFED,
2010:13-14)

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Ethiopia has been governed by a federal constitution since 1995, which was adopted in the will
and active participation of its people. The process of drafting a new constitution began on a
nationwide basis between 1992 and 1993, with debates taking place not only in the major cities
but also at the village levels (Adejumobi, 2007:134).

The US Federal Research Division also recognized the adoption of democratic constitution and
the transition of power in Ethiopia as follow:

The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was

adopted by the country’s transitional government in December 1994 and
came into force in August 1995. At that time, power also was formally
transferred to the newly elected legislature, the Federal Parliamentary
Assembly. It enshrines the separation of church and state and basic human
rights and freedoms, and guarantees that all Ethiopian languages will
enjoy equal state recognition, although Amharic is specified as the
working language of the federal government(US Federal Research
Division 2005:15).

Although Ethiopia had little experience with a popularly elected democratic government or
legislature, over 60 political parties emerged to contest in regional elections held in 1992
(Adejumobi, 2007:134).

2.2. Definitions of Concepts and Terms

The following terms and definitions, which are common in parliamentary business, are
presented for better understanding of concepts in relation to the Ethiopian legislature:

Legislature:: The department, assembly, or body of persons that makes statutory laws for a

state or nation (Henry Campbell Black, 1979).

Parliament: the group of elected politicians or other people who make the laws for their
country (Kate Woodford et al, 2003).

Congress: the elected group of politicians in the US who are responsible for making the law,
consisting of the senate and House of Representatives (Kate Woodford et al, 2003).

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Bicameral parliament: A legislative body composed of two chambers or houses. A legislative
body comprising a single chamber is called a unicameral parliament (Yamamoto,
2007).
Petition (to parliament): A request from one or several members of the public to an authority
for an action. The public can seek redress for personal grievances (Yamamoto, 2007).
Representation Function (constituency service): a function that is carried out by MPs in
their electoral district or constituency. Representation function involves the
consultations and discussions between the legislators and the electorate in areas of
peace and security, democracy, governance, development and so on (Researcher’s
own definition).
Parliamentary Group: means a collection of members of a party or parties which have not
competed against each other in electoral regions but which have competed in a
political program, and consists of a party or parties that have won not less than ten
seats (HPR, 2006).
Caucus: a closed meeting of party members within a legislative body to decide on questions of
policy or leadership (American heritage dictionary, 2011)
Presidential system: a system in which the president is simultaneously the head of state and
the head of the executive branch, and his/her status as such does not depend on
legislative support (Yamamoto, 2007: 81).
Parliamentary system: a system in which the head of the executive branch leads the
government which is dependent on the confidence or tolerance of the majority in
the parliament. There may be a monarch or a figurehead president as head of state
(Hironori Yamamoto, 2007: 81).
Parliamentary Oversight: the review, monitoring and supervision of government and public
agencies, including the implementation of policy and legislation (Yamamoto, 2007: 9).
Policy is seen as ‘the continuing work done by groups of policy actors who use available public
institutions to articulate and express the things they value (Considine 1994:4).

Public policy is the broad framework of ideas and values within which decisions are taken and
action or inaction is pursued by governments in relation to some issue or problem
(Brooks, 1989:16). Public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to
do (Dye, 2002:1)

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Policy analysis is finding out what the governments do, why they do it, what difference, if any,
it makes (Dye, 2002:4). It is also defined as the process of assessing situations,
defining problems, clarifying values and goals, developing and recommending
options, and implementing and/or evaluating outcomes (Smith, 2003:5).

The policy-making process encompasses the stages of Problem identification and agenda
setting, Policy formation, adoption, policy implementation, and Policy evaluation
(WHO: 3-4).

Public participation: Processes in which individuals, groups, and organizations have the
opportunity to participate in making decisions that affect them, or in which they
have an interest (Smith, 2003:5).

Stakeholder: a stakeholder is one who will or may be affected, has an interest in an issue or
may have the ability to affect a decision or outcome. A stakeholder may be an
individual, an organization or a group (Smith, 2003:5).

First Reading: means the process of reading and general discussion held on fundamental
concepts of a draft law submitted to the House before it gets endorsed, or referred
to the pertinent Standing Committee for further inspection (HPR, Oct 2006:5)

Second Reading: means the process of reading in which detailed discussion is conducted on
the draft law (HPR, Oct 2006:5)

Third Reading: means discussions and the process of giving decisions conducted after the
submission to the House of reports and recommendations, which are prepared
regarding the draft law referred to by the House to a Standing Committee(s) for
further and extensive re-examination subsequent to the Second reading (HPR, Oct
2006:5)

2.3. Background

As to the researcher’s opinion, Ethiopia’s politics has been sustained under the monarchic and
dictatorial regimes for thousands of years. Different opinions and thoughts never entertained
and zero sum game politics has been a common practice. Instead of settling disputes based on

8
lawful and peaceful means, everything was solved based on arbitrary decisions and using force
because the necessary legal framework and willingness to implement it was not in place.

The first written constitution of Ethiopia was prepared in 1931 by replicating the constitution of
some western countries and was granted by the emperor to the people. Although that
constitution had stipulated the establishment of a bicameral legislature, members of the two
houses have been elected by the emperor and the nobilities, not by the public. Even the revised
constitution of 1955 did not make significant difference in terms of election of MPs and their
power of adopting laws. The emperor even had the power to dissolve the legislature.
Furthermore, the legislature have not been vested in the power of passing laws without the
consent of the monarch and the policy making mandate was absolute prerogative of him.
Clapham (1961) articulated this role of the emperor precisely and clearly as follows:

H/Selassie was the Chief Legislator, with the power to approve and disapprove
parliamentary legislation and dissolve the parliament; had an indisputable
executive power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and other ministers;
to determine foreign relations; had complete control on the armed forces and
the sole power to appoint or dismiss provincial governors; and control over
judicial institutions with the mandate to supervise courts mandate pardons(C.
Clapham, 1961:1).

During the dictatorial regime of military government (dergue), the civil and political rights
were completely banned by law. Throughout this time, pursuing the idea that was different
from the idea of the regime has been resulting in imprisonment and killing. The military junta
ruled for thirteen years without any consent of the Ethiopian people. After thirteen years of
military rule, In September 1987, the regime declared “the People's Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia (PDRE)” under the so-called new constitution and in June of that year the National
‘Shengo’, a parliament, was “elected”. However, that kind of ‘shengo’ was not expected to
make policies that possess public interest due to its generic problems. Fasil Nahom(1997 :22)
describes the futile nature of that ‘shengo’ and its policy making role as follows :

The elections that ensued, however, resulted only in a rubber - stamp National
shengo that was not equal to the task at hand…. At the top, government and
party offices converged, with the same person wearing two or more hats. At the

9
 apex, the secretary general of the sole party was also the executive president of
the republic , the chairman of the national shengo, and the commander-in-chief
of the armed forces. The set-up is reminiscent of the monarchical absolutism of
the Ethiopian history during both the unwritten and written constitutional
epochs, in spite of the empire having changed in to a republic and emperor into
a president.

After the downfall of the dergue regime, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary democratic
Front (EPRDF) organized a peace conference at the end of June1991 that accommodated 25
political parties including 17 revel groups and other social segments of the society. The
conference has adopted charter and established government of the transitional period. The
charter has provided full protection to the civil and political rights and opened new era of
democracy for the nation and its people.

Based on the transitional charter’s provisions, the Council of Representatives, which was
represented by the conference participants and the then legislature, appointed a constitutional-
drafting commission. As the draft was prepared by the commission, it was deliberated by the
Council of Representatives and disseminated to the general public for detailed discussions. In
the discussions in, approximately, 23 thousand ‘kebeles’ throughout the country 16-18 million
population has been actively participated (TGE, minutes No. 94). After sufficient public
considerations, the draft was ratified on 8th of December 1994 by constituent assembly, its
members directly elected by the Ethiopian people, and it was took effect on 21st of August
1995. The civil and political rights provided by the charter have been extended and became
long lasting by the constitution.

Following the 1991 regime change, several local and four national and regional
parliamentary elections (May 1995, May 2000, May 2005, and May 2010) took
place. The May 1991 regime change ushered in significant changes in the body
politic of Ethiopia as enshrined in the 1991 Transitional Charter (TGE 1991)
and the incumbent constitution (FDRE 1995) both of which recognized the
inviolability of human rights, the rights of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups to self-
determination, and citizens’ unabridged freedom of speech, association and
assembly. Different legislations enacted after EPRDF’s seizure of power (TGE,

10
 1992, FDRE 2002) ensured decentralization of power from the political center
to the ethnically-constituted regions and subsequently to local and grassroots
units as the cornerstones of the federal system. Hence following the ousting of
the military dictatorship, Ethiopia adopted a multiparty and parliamentary
political system anchored in ethnic federalism (Kasahun Berhanu).

a. Members of the Houses of the FDRE

In line with the Ethiopian constitution (1995): Members of HPR are elected by the People for a
term of five years on the basis of universal suffrage and by direct, free and fair elections held
by secret ballot(Article 54/1). Members of the HPR, based on population and special
representation of minority Nationalities and Peoples, do not exceed 550; of these, minority
Nationalities and Peoples have at least 20 seats(Article 54/3). Members of the HPR are
representatives of the Ethiopian People as a whole and they are governed by the Constitution,
will of the people; and their Conscience (Article 54/4). On the other hand, the HoF is composed
of the representatives of Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (Article 61/1). Each Nation,
Nationality and People is represented in the HoF by at least one member. Furthermore, each
Nation or Nationality is represented by one additional representative for each one million of its
population (Article 61/2).

Members of the HoF are elected by the Councils of Regional States. The State Councils may
themselves elect representatives to the HoF, or they may hold elections to have the
representatives elected by the people directly (Article 61/3). Members of HoF and HPR have
been given immunity by the constitution. hence, cannot be prosecuted on account of any vote
they cast or opinion they express in the House, nor any administrative action be taken against
any member on such grounds (Articles 55/5& 63/1) and no member of the Houses may be
arrested or prosecuted without the permission of the Houses except in the case of flagrante
delicto (Articles 55/6 & 63/2). Members of the HPR may, in accordance with law, lose their
mandate of representation upon loss of confidence by the electorate (Article 55/7).
Table 1 shows the number of nations and nationalities in HoF (Seife Derbie Dec, 2011:36-37)

11
Table 1. Number of MPs from each Regional State (2010/11-2014/15)
State No. of MPs in HPR No. of MPs in HoF No. of Nations and
Nationalities
Oromia 178 26 1
Amhara 138 24 4
SNNPs 123 62 55
Tigray 38 7 3
Somali 23 5 1
Benishangul-Gumuz 9 5 5
Afar 8 2 1
Gambella 3 4 4
Harari 2 1 1
Addis Ababa 23 - NA
Dire Dawa 2 - NA
Total 547 135 75
Source: HPR and HoF websites(March, 2012)

b. Powers and Functions of the Houses of the FDRE

In accordance with the FDRE constitution (1995) Article 55, the HPR has the power of
legislation in all matters of federal jurisdiction including enacting specific laws on the matters
of:
a. utilization of land and other natural resources, of rivers and lakes crossing the
boundaries of the national territorial jurisdiction or linking two or more States;
b. inter-State commerce and foreign trade;
c. air, rail, water and sea transport, major roads linking two or more States, postal and
telecommunication services;
d. enforcement of the political rights established by the Constitution and electoral laws
and procedures; nationality, immigration, passport, exit from and entry into the country,
the rights of refugees and of asylum;
e. setting uniform standards of measurement and calendar;
f. Patents and copyrights;
g. the possession and bearing of arms,
h. labor code, commercial code, penal code,
i. civil laws which the House of the Federation deems necessary to establish and sustain
one economic community;

12
 j. determining the organization of national defense, public security, and a national police
force and carry out investigations and take necessary measures if the conduct of these
forces infringes upon human rights and the nation’s security;
k. declaring state of emergency; consider and resolve on a decree of a state of emergency
declared by the executive;
l. proclaiming a state of war on the basis of a draft law submitted to it by the Council of
Ministers;
m. approving general policies and strategies of economic, social and development, and
fiscal and monetary policy of the country and enact laws on matters relating to the local
currency, the administration of the National Bank, and foreign exchange; levy taxes and
duties on revenue sources reserved to the Federal Government;
n. ratifying the Federal budget;
o. ratifying international agreements concluded by the executive;
p. approving the appointment of Federal judges, members of the Council of Ministers,
commissioners, the Auditor General, and of other officials whose appointment is
required by law to be approved by it; and
q. establishing Human Rights Commission and institution of the Ombudsman, selecting
and appoint their members and determining by law their powers and functions;

It requests a joint session of the HoF and of the HPR to take appropriate measures when State
authorities are unable to arrest violations of human rights within their jurisdiction and, based on
the joint decision of the Houses, give directives to the concerned State authorities. The HPR
has the power to call and question the Prime Minister and other Federal officials and to
investigate the Executive’s conduct and discharge of its responsibilities; at the request of one-
third of its members, discuss any matter pertaining to the powers of the executive. In addition,
it has the power to take decisions or measures it deems necessary; elect the Speaker and Deputy
Speaker of the House and establish standing and ad hoc committees, as it deems necessary to
accomplish its work (Ibid).

According to the Constitution of FDRE (1995), Article 62, the HoF has vested in the powers
and functions to:
i. interpret the Constitution; organize the Council of Constitutional Inquiry,

13
ii. decide on issues relating to the rights of Nations, Nationalities and Peoples to self-
determination, including the right to secession,
iii. promote the equality of the Peoples of Ethiopia enshrined in the Constitution and
promote and consolidate their unity based on their mutual consent; exercise the powers
concurrently entrusted to it and to the HPR,
iv. strive to find solutions to disputes or misunderstandings that may arise between States;
determine the division of revenues derived from joint Federal and State tax sources and
the subsidies that the Federal Government may provide to the States,
v. determine civil matters which require the enactment of laws by the HPR,
vi. order Federal intervention if any State endangers the constitutional order,
vii. establish permanent and ad hoc committees, and
viii. elect the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House, and adopt rules of procedure
and internal administration;

14
 c. General Structure of the Ethiopian Legislature

The Ethiopian
Legislature

House of peoples’ House of the

Representatives(HPR) Federation (HoF)

Speaker of the House Speaker of the House

Standing Standing Committees

committees 16 of the House 2

Business advisory Directorates of the

committee 1 Secretariat 6

Coordinating Council of
committee 1 Constitutional
Enquiry

Secretariat of the
House

Directorates of the
Secretariat 7

Government
Whip

Parliamentary
Groups

Figure 1: Structure of the Legislature (HPR & HoF websites, 2011)

15
Pursuant to Article 55 (19) of the Constitution, (1995) the HPR has organized the Business
Advisory Committee, the Coordinating Committee, the Standing Committees and the
Friendship groups, which promote bilateral relations with peer parliaments. The chairs and the
members of these committees and groups are appointed by the general assembly. The Business
Advisory Committee is formed in every term and the House determines the number of its
members. Currently, at the fourth term of the house, the committee consists of the speaker and
deputy speaker, the ruling party (11 members), allies of the ruling party (7 members), Ethiopian
Federal Democratic Unity Forum (1 opposition party member) with a total number of 21.

According to the Regulation of Rules of Procedures and Members’ Code of Conduct of HPR,
article 143, (2006) the committee is vested in the powers and functions, among other things to:
a. formulate the business to be discussed by the House;
b. allocate the debate time necessary for each agenda;
c. prepare and submit the draft annual budget of the House;
d. follow up and supervise the administration of the manpower, finance and property of
the House;
e. interpret the House's Rules of procedures and Members' Code of Conduct; and issue a
directive or manual which helps the implementation of this Regulation;

The Coordinating Committee of the HPR comprises 36 members including the Speaker, the
Deputy Speaker, the Chairperson and the Deputy Chairperson of each Standing Committee, the
Head of the Secretariat of the House, the Government Chief Whip and it is chaired by the house
speaker. In line with the regulation of the House (2006), article 147, the committee has Powers
and Functions to:
i. coordinate the general operation of the committees and supervise the effectiveness
thereof;
ii. evaluate the general activities of the committees and set out directions on fundamental
matters;
iii. investigate reports related to the plans and operation of Standing Committees and,
where necessary, take corrective measures;
iv. co-ordinate and supervise activities that may build up the national and international
image of the House;

16
 v. conduct studies regarding the needs of Standing Committees and conditions whereby
they may become successful and;
vi. discuss and decide on the matters submitted to it by the Speaker or Standing
Committees or members of the coordinating committee;

Standing Committees are the pillars of the house and almost all the businesses of the house are
processed in the auspice of these Committees. The house has established 16 Standing
Committees in the fourth term. Standing Committees of the house have been given the powers
and duties, by the same regulation, to examine draft laws referred to them and submit reports
and proposals after examining them; oversee government bodies; initiate laws; examine
witnesses and documents and so on.

Table 2. Number of committee members and number of public departments overseen by

the committees
No. Name of the committee No. of No. of Public
committee departments
members overseen by the
committees
1 Human resource Development Affairs Standing Committee 20 9
2 Trade Affairs Standing Committee 15 5
3 Industry Affairs Standing Committee 20 8
4 Agriculture Affairs Standing Committee 20 10
5 Natural Resource and Environmental Affairs Standing Committee 20 12
6 Transport Affairs Standing Committee 20 9
7 Urban Development and Construction Affairs Standing Committee 15 4
8 Science, Communication and Technology Affairs Standing Committee 20 5
9 Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee 20 9
10 Legal, Justice and Administrative Affairs Standing Committee 18 14
11 Foreign, Defense and Security Affairs Standing Committee 15 4
12 Women, Children and Youth Affairs Standing Committee 19 3
13 Culture, Tourism and Mass media Affairs Standing Committee 20 10
14 Social Affairs Standing Committee 20 9
15 Pastoralists Affairs Standing Committee 19 1
16 Public Accounts Affairs Standing Committee 15 1
Total 296 113

Source: HPR – Resolution No.2/2010 of the House for the establishment of standing
committees, appointment of members and chairs of committees, Addis Ababa

17
The general assembly of House of Federation consists of 135 members who represent 75
nations and nationalities. The House has established two standing committees; each consists of
15 members, to discharge its constitutional mandates. The Committees are: the Regional and
Constitutional Affairs Standing Committee and the Budget Subsidy and Revenue Affairs
Standing Committee.

2.4. Policy and Law Making

There are numerous definitions of public policy. Public policy is “a statement by a government
of what it intends to do such as a law, regulation, decision, order, or a combination of these.
The lack of such statements may also be an implicit statement of policy” (Bikkland, 2011:9)
Furthermore, public policy is “a proposed course of action of a person, group or government
within a given environment providing obstacles and opportunities which the policy was
proposed to utilize and overcome in an effort to reach a goal or realize an objective or
purpose”(Frederich, 1963:79).

Smith (2003:8) quotes Daneke and Steiss that public policy is ‘a broad guide to present and
future decisions, selected in light of given conditions from a number of alternatives; the actual
decision or set of decisions designed to carry out the chosen course of actions; a projected
program consisting of desired objectives (goals) and the means of achieving them’. It can also
be defined as “Commitment to a course or plan of action agreed to by a group of people with
the power to carry it out” (Dodd and Michelle, 2000:2). Briefly stated, public policy is a choice
or decision made by government that guides subsequent actions in similar circumstances
(Smith, 2003:8).
Policy-making is a competitive process, with the competing interests of different groups
involved in shaping the direction that policy takes (WHO: 17). Policy-making is thus a
competitive process that aims at producing winners and losers and the basic assumption is that,
in a fair fight, most of the time the best idea will win (Lenihan, 2011).

To Hollister (2007:6), “Public policy is traditionally made in elected bodies. Most people
believe that the lawmaking process is the beginning and end of policymaking, but it is
important to understand that there are five separate and distinct ways that public bodies make

18
policy”. Hollister continues to describe the five ways through which elected bodies make policy
as follows: Lawmaking, Budget Process, Rule Making, Oversight and Sunset Option which
refers to the concept that some kind of automatic review or termination built into a
policy(Ibid:6-9).

2.5. Policy and Oversight

Parliamentary oversight is an important part and parcel of the policy making process.
Parliament should ensure that the agreed policy is properly implemented and delivered to
the target citizens by means of parliamentary oversight. According to Pelizzo et al
(2006:8),
scholars have generally agreed on the fact that effective oversight is good for the
proper functioning of a democratic political system. Effective oversight is beneficial
for a political system for, at least, two basic reasons (West and Cooper, 1989):
‘first, because the oversight activity can actually contribute to improving the
quality of the policies/programs initiated by the government; second, because as
the government policies are ratified by the legislative branch, such policies acquire
greater legitimacy.

Besides their responsibility for the legislative process, parliaments have a key function in
providing oversight of the government on behalf of the public (Beetham, 2006:127).
Yamamoto (2007:6) also emphasizes the importance of oversight as follows:”through its
core oversight function, parliament holds the government to account on behalf of the
people, ensuring that government policy and action are both efficient and commensurate
with the needs of the public. Parliamentary oversight is crucial in checking excesses on the
part of the government”.

As Pelizzo et al (2006:8) stated ‘studies have underlined that the legislatures may adopt several
tools to oversee the actions of the executives such as hearings in committees, hearings in the
plenary assembly, the creation of inquiry committees, parliamentary questions, question time, the
interpellations and the ombudsman (Maffio, 2002; Pennings, 2000)’. The key functions of
parliamentary oversight can be described as follows:

19
 a. to detect and prevent abuse, arbitrary behavior, or illegal and unconstitutional
conduct on the part of the government and public agencies. At the core of this
function is the protection of the rights and liberties of citizens,
b. to hold the government to account in respect of how the taxpayers’ money is used.
It detects waste within the machinery of government and public agencies. Thus it
can improve the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of government operations.
c. to ensure that policies announced by the government and authorized by
parliament are actually delivered. This function includes monitoring the
achievement of goals set by legislation and the government’s own programs; and
d. to improve the transparency of government operations and enhance public trust
in the government, which is itself a condition of effective policy delivery
(Yamamoto, 2007:9-10).

2.6. Initiation of Bills

Bills may be introduced by any member of the House called a private member’s bill, but
usually a bill is introduced by a council of ministers which is a government bill. Private
Members' bills make up the majority of bills, but are far less likely to be passed than
government bills, which make legislatures responsive rather than initiator of policy.
It is a central feature of Parliament that it mainly performs a responsive rather than
an initiating function within the constitution. The government at different levels
initiates policy, formulates its policy on legislation and other proposals, exercises
powers under the prerogative or granted by statute and, in all these aspects,
performs the governing role in the State. Both Houses of Parliament spend most of
their time responding, in a variety of ways, to these initiatives, proposals or
executive actions (Blackburn and Kennon, 2003:5).

This situation is common in countries that follow parliamentary system of government. In

parliamentary systems, legislators introduce relatively few bills; most legislative proposals are
instead presented by bureaucrats to the cabinet, which then introduces them as draft legislation
to the parliament (Moran et al, 2006:231) whereas in the presidential system is the other way
round. In the separation of powers system of the United States not only do legislatures have the

20
final word over the form and content of bills, but farther only legislator can introduce bills
(Moran et al 2006:232).
However, as Blackburn and Kennon (2003:6) stated,
the government is not the only source of input of business for Parliament. Much
business is originated by the opposition front bench and by back-benchers on either
side of the two Houses. The inspiration for their input is largely found in general
public opinion, outside pressures or interest groups, newspapers, radio and
television, and in the minds and attitudes of millions of citizens represented in the
Commons by Members.
Parliament, therefore, finds itself the recipient of a wide range of external pressures and
proposals, broadly divided between the governments on the one hand and the outside world -
the public on the other.
The prerequisite for policy making process is the existence of strong and competent legislative
body. No country can long have a workable democracy- with voice of opposition, accountable
government, and adequate avenues for citizens to be heard – without a vibrant and meaningful
legislature and legislative process (Ornstein, 1992:1). According to Beetham (2006:115)
Parliaments have to strike a balance between cooperation with, and oversight over,
an elected executive; sheer obstructionism rarely serves the public. Yet the more
likely danger in the contemporary period is that of undue executive dominance,
whether through lack of parliamentary capacity or unwillingness on the part of
parliaments to exercise the powers they have.
Whatever the level of resources and staffing available, it is now becoming widely accepted that
parliaments should be independent of the executive in the way they organize themselves,
including control over their own timetable and the ability to recall themselves outside normal
session if circumstances so require ( Beetham, 2006:117).

2.7. The MPs’ Freedom of Speech

The freedom of speech of MPs and their representational mandate can also enhance the
independence and strength of the legislature.

21
 Elected representatives enjoy absolute independence vis-à-vis their electorate. Just
as parliamentarians are not representatives of only part of the population, so also
they are precluded from defending special interests, deputies and senators exercise
their mandates freely and are not bound by any undertakings given before their
election or instructions received from voters during their mandate.. Elected
representatives are not obliged either to support their party or any decisions taken
by their group in parliament. It is for the party or group concerned to expel a
parliamentarian whose conduct is deemed harmful to its interests. In no case,
however, does expulsion entail the loss of a parliamentary mandate. Of course,
parliamentarians are still free, once elected, to honor their pledges and comply
with the voting instructions of their parliamentary group. (Hulst, 2000:9)

The Inter Parliamentary Union also strongly insists to the realization of MPs’ freedom of
speech. Freedom of expression goes to the heart of democracy and is essential to members of
parliament; without the ability to express their opinions freely, members of parliament cannot
represent the people who have elected them (IPU, 2012:9). However, it is inevitable that the
governments to have strong control over the legislatures so as to have power to implement their
new policies. According to Blackburn and Kennon (2003:5),
in many fields, but not all, new policies require new powers for their
implementation and new powers are obtained by legislation. All governments in all
countries must control the legislature. In some, such as the United Kingdom,
governments are governments because they exercise the control. In others, such as
the United States of America, the Government has more indirect means of control.
But a government that had not the means to make laws could not exercise its proper
authority.

2.8. Public Participation and Policy Making

A legislature that is representative and participatory is characterized by citizens having access

to, and input in, the policy making process through the legislature. There is high degree of
interaction between members and citizens; issues are addressed or legislation amended because

22
of public input or pressure; and civil society organizations, advocacy organizations, and/or
interest groups are active participants in the legislative process (Saiegh, 2005). Participation
matters because the people who are politically active are communicating their preferences to
public officials and are wielding rewards and punishments, such as votes, and campaign
contributions, that may affect officials’ career (Nice, 2004:72).

The participants can be classified as spectators who are passive but majority and gladiators who
are active but less in number. Interest groups can be considered as composed of the gladiators.
“Interest groups are organizations that try to influence government decisions. A distinction can
be drawn between economically motivated groups, professionally motivated groups, public
interest groups and ideological groups. Interest groups engage in a variety of tactics to
influence the government decisions-public relations, electioneering and lobbying” (Harrigan
and Nice, 2004:89)
Though the expected role of the parliaments is described above, there have been limitations in
most of them.
In almost every parliament around the world, there is a gap between powers that a
parliament has to hold the executive to account and the willingness or ability of
politicians to use them. Public opinion about the older parliaments in North
America and Western Europe highlights the widespread belief that the bodies are
not as effective as they should be, and the public seems to be permanently
disappointed with the ability of parliaments to fulfill their potential (Power,
2012:16).
However, since recent times, optimistic practices have been emerging even in the most criticized
Sub-Saharan Africa. Barkan (2009,), in a wide-ranging study of legislative development in
Africa, suggests that the situation is changing, with parliaments evolving out of their role as
rubber stamps for the executive and becoming more effective as watchdogs, policy-makers and
representatives.

2.9. Representation Function (Constituency Service)

A Legislature has to endeavor not only make the public to come and participate in the policy
making process but also to perform representation functions in the constituency. Greg Power

23
(2012:59) has made a global parliamentary survey on the constituency service and the results of
the parliamentarians’ survey suggested that it was the single most time-consuming feature of
their work and immensely important to both citizens and politicians – indeed, it is an accepted
and expected part of the job. He also further explains the importance of the activity as follows:
The other dimension to constituency activity consists in ensuring that local
experience informs national policy-making. Through their interaction with voters,
local MPs gain enormous expertise about the impact of policy decisions and
legislation at the local level. That direct experience is often far greater than of the
civil servants and ministers responsible for drafting and implementing legislation,
but is rarely used by parliaments in any systematic fashion to shape legislation.
Instead it is most frequently due to the initiative of individual politicians that the
experience of citizens is used as a policy resource (Power, 2012:66)
The first and foremost characteristic of a legislature is its intrinsic link to the citizens of
the nation or state – representation and the legislature acts as the eye, ear and voice of the
people in a representative democracy (Ornstein, 1992:2). According to the global
parliamentary survey made by Power, the time dedicated to representation function
(constituency work) is indicated as follows:
The survey also revealed the amount of time that constituency work takes up; one
fifth of politicians reported devoting more than 40 hours each week solely to
helping constituents, while a further one third spent between 21 and 40 hours each
week… while in the UK suggest that, in 1996, an already large 40% of politicians’
time was spent on constituency work, but, by 2006, new MPs put the figure at 49%.
In Canada, constituency work takes up more time than any other activity and
parliament adjourns every fourth or fifth week to enable MPs to spend more time
with their constituent(Power,2012:60).

Power also disclosed the single most frequent complaint, cited by almost 36% of
respondents, was a lack of resources for carrying out constituency work, including funds
for running constituency offices, staff to work in the offices and the ability to travel.

24
 2.10. The Media and Policy Making

Media is an important tool for the proper functioning of the legislature because it can create the
necessary communication interface among the legislators, the executive officials and the
general public and they can influence each other using it. Beetham explains the role of media
relating to the parliamentary function as follows:

The media constitute the key means for informing citizens about public affairs, and
a key channel of communication between parliament and public. In their
investigative role, the media have always been seen as a ‘watchdog’ against all
kinds of abuse. How well they fulfill these functions is vital for the quality of
democratic life. Given the tendency for these functions to become distorted, whether
by executive partiality in a government-controlled system, or by powerful economic
interests in a commercialized one, parliament has a key democratic role in setting
an appropriate legal framework for the media, to ensure both their independence
and their diversity (Beetham, 2006:6).

Legislatures also need to have means of engaging and influencing to the general public to
their business. The participation of the general public in the activities of the legislature in
person is, naturally, represented by small number of people. To bridge the gap Power
suggests the need for broadcast media as follows:

Because parliamentary outreach will ever physically touch only a small proportion
of the population, the second main element of engagement strategies is the mass
broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings through radio and television, which
dramatically widens the potential audience. The World e-Parliament Report
suggests that around one third of parliaments now televise through their own
channels and a further one third collaborate with other TV channels to broadcast
political programs (power, 2012:29).

25
 2.11. Public Petition and Policy Making

Another essential function of legislatures in the policy making process is entertaining of public
petition. I can help observing citizen rights and protecting abuse or maladministration.
Yamamoto (2007:33) explains the importance of handling public petitions as follows:
Parliament can defend the rights and interests of citizens in individual cases. The
oversight activities of departmentally-related committees include handling
individual complaints against the corresponding government department. Many
parliaments have developed a system for streamlining the handling of such
grievances.
In Britain, according to May (1989:754),
Public petition may pray for an alternation of the general law or the reconsideration
of a general administrative decision. They also pray for redress of local or personal
grievances. These are to be distinguished from petitions relating directly to private
business. It is the inherent right of every commoner in England to prepare and
present petitions to the house of commons in the case of grievance, and the house of
commons to receive the same; that it is undoubted right and privilege of the commons
to judge and determine, touching the nature and matter of such petitions, how far they
are fit and unfit to be received.

Any citizen or group of citizens may prepare and sign a petition to the house on any matter in
which the house has jurisdiction to interfere (Blackburn and Kennon, 2003:380). The scholars
extend their account by indicating that the petition must be presented to the house by a
member: Any member can present a petition (provided it is in order), either publicly
immediately before the adjournment is moved towards the end of the day’s sitting (or at the
beginning of the business on a Friday), or privately by putting the petition in the petition bag
behind the speaker’s chair. As to the writers, once petitions are presented, they are referred to
the relevant government department. However, ministers are not required to reply to petitions
though they frequently do so and any observations they make are presented to the House.

26
 2.12. Budget Process and Policy Making

Policy is nothing to do without budget allocation. Hence, it should be addressed as component

of the policy making process. A law without a Budget is simply rhetoric and the budget-making
process is as critical as the lawmaking process (Hollister, 2007:7). Wehner and Byanyima
(2004:9) emphasize on the significance of budget to policy making as follow:
The budget is the most important economic policy tool of a government and
provides a comprehensive statement of the priorities of a nation. As the
representative institutions of the people, it falls to national legislatures to ensure
that the budget optimally matches a nation’s needs with available resources.
Effective legislative participation in the budget process establishes checks and
balances that are crucial for transparent and accountable government and ensuring
efficient delivery of public services.

The budget process is governed by a timeline that can be separated into four different stages:
drafting, legislating, execution, and audit. As Wehner and Byanyima (2004:30-31)
the drafting stage is paraphrased that it is mostly internal to the executive that
involves setting fiscal policy and estimate available revenues in order to
establish the total resource envelope that will be available for spending;
negotiating between spending departments and the finance ministry on the
allocation of funds across different functions based on the indicative expenditure
ceilings for each department set by the ministry, compiling draft spending
proposals and reviewing by the finance ministry, discussing with departments to
resolve controversial issues, and reviewing and approving by the cabinet.

Once a comprehensive budget has been drafted, it has to be approved by the legislature to
become effective. According to Krafchik and Wehner (2004:1)
Parliament’s 'power of the purse' is a fundamental feature of democracy. The
vast majority of democratic constitutions require appropriations and taxation
measures to be approved by parliament in order to become effective. For this
requirement to be more than constitutional fiction though, parliament must
ensure that the revenue and spending measures it authorizes are fiscally sound,

27
 match the needs of the population with available resources, and are implemented
properly and efficiently.

Furthermore, Wehner and Byanyima (2004:31-32) depict the budget review and approval
as follows:
Its options are to approve or reject the budget, to amend it, or, in a few cases, to
substitute the draft tabled by the executive with its own budget. In some countries, the
legislature passes separate legislation for appropriations and changes to the tax code;
in others it considers a unified budget bill. The exact form of legislative approval is less
important than the fact that it must be comprehensive. The principle of legislative
authorization of all public spending and taxation ensures the ‘rule of law’ in public
finance.

The duration of the legislative stage varies between countries. The United States Congress
spends about eight months and sometimes more debating on the budget, while some
legislatures only have about a month. Budget scrutiny takes time. A good rule of thumb,
therefore, is that the more time the legislature has to review the draft budget, the greater its
overall potential influence. International experience suggests that a national legislature requires
at least about three to four months for effective consideration of the annual State budge
(Wehner and Byanyima 2004:32)

Table 3: How far in advance of the beginning of the fiscal year, does the executive present
its budget to the legislature?
Time Number of countries Percentage of total
Up to two months 10 26%
Two to four months 23 59%
Four to six months 5 13%
More than six months 1 3%
Total 39 100%
Source: (OECD, 2003, taken from W. Krafchik, J. Wehner, 2004)

Nevertheless, Krafchik and Wehner (2004:2) argue that,

28
 Parliament usually does not have sufficient information or technical capacity to play
an effective role in the budget process. The executive will always have a greater
information base than the legislature and parliament will enter the process at a late
stage after roughly a year of secretive departmental negotiations. Moreover, most
parliamentary committees in developing and transitional countries do not have
sufficient technical research, or even administrative, capacity.
If we take the number of parliamentary amendments as a yardstick, international evidence
shows that few parliaments have much more influence than others as shown from the next
figure.

Figure 2: Legislative Budget amendments

Source: Legislatures and Budget Oversight: Best Practices (Krafchik & Wehner, May 2004)

The execution or implementation stage of the budget process is mainly in the hands of the
executive. Following the implementation of the budget, government accounts and financial
statements are audited by an independent audit institution, such as an audit court or auditor
general.
General audit offices are generally autonomous organizations with functional links
to parliaments. They provide critical advisory services to parliaments, directly or
indirectly, in the exercise of their accountability functions. At the same time, the
effectiveness of audit reports largely depends on the follow-up parliaments give to
them (Santiso, 2004:66).

29
Wehner and Byanyima(2004:35) indicate the need of timely audit report and the
legislature’s consideration on it as follow:
In most countries, the audit of accounts is followed by the consideration of audit
findings by the legislature and if the process is effective, any recommendations
based on audit findings are reflected in future budgets, thus allowing for continuous
improvements in public spending and public financial management
generally…Audit reports need to be produced and tabled in the legislature as
speedily as possible to ensure their relevance since long delays undermine
accountability, because officials who are responsible for a loss of public money
may have moved on or retired by the time an incident receives attention.

2.13. Resource and the Legislature

Legislature is required to have adequate resources that enable it to discharge its responsibilities.
No legislature can be effective unless it has adequate resources to conduct research on policy
issues, develop models, analyze data, and write laws. Staffs, libraries, and expertise are all
necessary, as are tools like computers, telephones, and fax machines. (Ornstein, 1992:11)
Legislature is the highest authority of a nation. However, its power cannot be realized without
necessary resources. This idea is reinforced by Beetham(2006:117) as follow:
Parliamentary effectiveness cannot be satisfactorily treated without confronting
issues of power. ‘Power’ has many different meanings, but two are particularly
relevant here. The first is power as a capacity: having the relevant legal rights and
resources – financial, human and organizational – to carry out necessary tasks. The
second is power as relational: here having sufficient power and independence in
relation to the executive to oversee it effectively.

30
 Chapter Three

3. Research Methods and Tools

3.1. Data Source and Gathering T

Tools
ools

In this research, primary and secondary data have been employed. The tools used to
collect primary data have been:
a. Questionnaires,
b. Interviews,
c. Focus group discussions and
d. Personal observations,
The Interview guides and questionnaires have been semi - structured, which enabled the
researcher to quantify some of the data and to understand the rationale behind the
answers of the respondents. The researcher has also used ample secondary information
from books, periodicals, proclamations regulations and directives of different libraries
and websites.

3.2. Sampling Techniques

Since the research involved qualitative and quantitative study, the sampling technique was a
combination of purposive and stratified sampling. According to researcher’s design, samples
were taken from veteran MPs (ex-MPs), senior MPs, standing committee chairs and members
and experts of the secretariat of the HPR, HoF and OFAG. The researcher has believed that the
selected people had detailed and correct information about the research area because of their
current and previous positions and their long service time. Relevant questions were also made
available to corresponding respondents.

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 3.3. Data Collection

Accordingly, among the intended 126-sample size, 99 (79%) participants have been able to
provide their opinions. Out of the total number, 85 MPs and veteran MPs have been involved in
completing the questionnaire. The interviewees have included seven experts from the
secretariat of HPR, 2 experts from HoF and one from OFAG. In the third category, four people
have been selected in two focus groups from MPs and veteran MPs who have special
knowledge about the legislature. Though the number of the members of the focus groups is
small, they can be considered as the institutional memory of the HPR.
The demographic feature of respondents of the questionnaires (85 MPs) is depicted in the
figures 2, 3 and 4. The work experience, educational level and gender composition of the
respondents is tried to make reliable as much as possible.

Figure 3: Gender Composition of respondents

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Figure 4: Educational level of respondents

Figure 5: Service times of Respondent MPs in the Parliament

3.4. Method of Data Analysis

The data gathered during the survey have been analyzed using word descriptions, tables,
percentages, graphs and diagrams as appropriate. The researcher has also tried to compare the
current practice of the Ethiopian legislature with respect to the accepted theories and practices.
The study is equally descriptive and explanatory research because the researcher endeavored to
show what is going on and why it is happening in the study area in question.

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 Chapter Four

4. Findings and Analysis

The policy making process comprises several stages. The process includes problem
identification and agenda setting, policy initiation and formulation, adoption, implementation,
evaluation and policy redesign. The most important public policy making bodies are the
legislature, the executive and somehow the judiciary. The focus of this study was the practice
of the legislature in policy making process in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian legislature more or less
involves in all policy making stages be it significantly or not. However, it boldly involves in
legislative and oversight activities. Draft Laws (Bills) and other strategic documents, such as
the five year plan, are scrutinized and adopted by the legislature. With regard to the oversight
function, the legislature and its standing committees monitor and inspect the performance of the
executive body in different ways. Legislators also visit their constituencies and they play
representation roles by consulting their electorate. Furthermore, the legislature and its standing
committees look after public petitions, grievances and tips, which are important inputs to the
oversight process. Several resolutions are also passed by the legislature. These parliamentary
functions are highly related to the policy making process in one way or the other.

4.1. The Legislative Process

a. The Law Making Process

According to the Ethiopian constitution (1995), and the RPMCR (2006) the HPR has the
mandates from initiating to adopting laws. As defined by the RPMCR (2006 Article 50), the
MPs, the committees and the parliamentary groups have the right to initiate draft bills except
financial bill, which is limited to the government only. According to the researcher’s
assessment, however, in practice 99% of bills have been initiated by the executive departments.
Nevertheless, the initiation of most of the bills by the executive does not mean the legislature
has not any input in the preparation of the bills. The issues and problems that arise frequently in

34
the legislature push the executive to prepare bills that would ease the problems and the
legislature contributes to the initiation of bills indirectly.
The bill that comes to the legislature must be signed by the respective initiator and handed over
to the speaker. Under the auspice of the speaker, the bill is required to be approved as an
agenda item by the business advisory committee and presented to the plenary session. Prior to
its discussion, representative of the policy initiator need to brief to the house on the contents
and importance of the bill. After the briefing the first reading debate is taken place by focusing
on general issues. As the first reading is concluded, the bill either will be referred to relevant
standing committee for further scrutiny or directly, if motion is moved, it will be passed to
second reading and enacted as a law. Nevertheless, direct adoption of bills is not common
except financial bills. If the document is not distributed before 48 hours, it must be presented
by reading in detail.
The bill referred to the concerned committee after the first reading is required to undergo
several stages prior to its approval by the House. Firstly, the committee to which the bill is
referred has to examine carefully and in detail. After the committee members make it clear
themselves it is important to identify issues and questions to be clarified and answered by the
initiator. The next step will be inviting the initiator government department heads and
professionals to explain the purpose and importance of the draft bill and answer the questions
prepared by the respective standing committee beforehand.

In this testimonial forum, MPs other than the committee members can take part and pose
questions and opinions over the agenda. The representative(s) of the initiator government
department give(s) clarifications over the vague issues and give(s) answers to the questions
from the standing committee and participants of the forum. If the bill under question is to have
deemed affect public interest, public hearing will be organized by the focal committee. The
public forum is represented by different stakeholders who may include mass organizations,
professional associations, civil society organizations (CSOs) and higher education and research
institutions, chambers of commerce, public institutions, interested groups and individuals.
These stakeholders are invited through broadcast media publicly and through letters
individually along with the copy of the agenda to make necessary preparations in advance.

35
Stakeholders who are not able to participate in person can send their opinions and questions
through letters, telephone and other electronic means. Once the arrangements are finalized, the
public hearing debate will take place. In this forum, the committee plays the role of a mediator.
The opinions and questions forwarded by the participants are addressed (responded) only by
experts of the initiator department. However, the committee takes notes carefully during the
discussion. As the public hearing is concluded, evaluation of the standing committee is
important to assure whether the hearing is enough or more hearing is needed. If the committee
believes that more hearing is needed it can be organized in a similar way as the aforementioned
pattern.

In the post hearing period the concerned standing committee make discussions about the public
opinions and identify issues to be amended on the bill. Then report and resolution proposal will
be prepared. Its content includes the process of examination of the bill, amendments and the
resolution proposal. As the report is submitted to the speaker, he/she presents it to the business
advisory committee to be approved as agenda item in the next session of the House.

The second reading is held based on the report of the concerned standing committee. In this
step, detailed debate is taken place and finally either passed as a law or may be referred back to
the committee for more scrutiny. As the scrutiny is accomplished, report is presented to the
house in similar way to the previous situation and third reading is carried out. Eventually the
bill is voted to be a law. This is the procedure how the Ethiopian legislations pass through.

So far, we have seen the general procedure of law making process of the legislature. This
procedure is only applied in examining and approving draft bills only. Around 99% of the draft
bills are initiated by the executive departments, which is common in all countries that follow
parliamentary system of government (Moran et al, 2006:231). Some people and even MPs
consider this issue as a weakness of the legislature however this is no more different practice to
Ethiopia.

Nevertheless, the general policy guidelines of the government departments are not only
initiated by the executive but also adopted there. These general policies are the basis for the
draft bills, which are scrutinized and adopted by the legislature. The perspective of the

36
legislature in scrutinizing the bills is based on these broad policy guidelines. Even though the
MPs are abided by these policies, they do not have the opportunity to have their voices. The
FDRE’s Constitution (1995) Article 55(10) stipulates that the general policies and strategies of
the country shall be approved by the legislature, while article 77(6) economic social and
development policies shall be formulated and implemented by the executive. Most of the target
group MPs (respondents) consider the adoption of general policies is as a sole mandate of the
executive. However, like the PASDEP and GTP plans, the general policies and strategies of the
country must be discussed and approved by the legislature. Though the adoption of regulations
is vested in the legislature, the mandate is delegated to the council of ministers based on the
constitutional provision. Directives are initiated and approved within the executive
departments.

When we come to the scrutiny of bills in the parliament, it is worthwhile to mention some
limitations of the process. During the data collection, most of the participants were not happy
with the quality of bill scrutiny in the legislature. Reasons for lack of quality which are
forwarded by them are: time shortage, lack of competence and commitment of committee
members, limited stakeholders’ participation, pressure (being hasty) to approve bills by the
executive (some important bills were approved by motion), referring a lot of bills to be
approved urgently at the end of the fiscal year by the executive, absence of annual legislative
plan, the negligence of public media in reporting the business of the legislature and so on. The
researcher feel that the time allotted to the scrutiny of bills is enough for the time being, twenty
working days. Furthermore, a committee can request additional time to the speaker and time
extension is possible if required. Nevertheless, the time allotted to the scrutiny of the budget
bill is considered as an insufficient by almost all respondents (It will be discussed in budget
process section in detail). The time allotted nowadays to other bills is also very short compared
to the international practice, which extends from months up to several years to scrutinize and
approve a single bill.

37
Figure 6: The extent of scrutiny on bills in terms of allotted time and deliberation made
by the HPR

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

The current principal problem, however, is not a matter of lack of time. The majority of the
people who are involved in the focus groups, interviews and completing the questionnaires
have underscored that the core cause of the low quality of scrutiny of bills is lack of
competence and commitment of committees’ members. The problem starts from nomination of
candidates during the election. There is a tendency of selecting candidates who are not
important to the states and local administrations. In some regions, some politicians even
conclude to the extent of considering it as a place of demotion. Some MPs are not also happy
with the privileges and benefits that they receive in the parliament. The MPs who have relative
competence tend to search for jobs outside the legislature to get better salaries and other
benefits. The executive also appoints many MPs who are considered as capable to the duties of
executive departments and this in turn erodes the capability of the legislature. The lack of
logistical support and office facilities are also demotivating factors for MPs. Committee chairs,
members and other MPs do not have clear status that would allow them deserving privileges
and benefits. Regardless of these privileges MPs are supposed to show strong sprit of
responsibility, but the reality is different. Therefore, the feeble working attitude of MPs has
contributed negatively to the bills’ scrutiny quality. These all can be considered as sources of
incompetence and lack of commitment of the committee members.

38
The next factor to the low quality of scrutiny of bills is the problems that emanate from the
executive departments. Some bills, like the land lease bill and bill for the establishment of the
federal police commission, are adopted directly by motion within three hours deliberation.
Bills, which are included in the president’s annual opening speech and the government’s
legislative plan, are not submitted to the legislature timely as intended. This caused the lack of
annual legislative plan in the legislature. As a result, backlogs of dozens of bills are submitted
at the end of fiscal year among which some are to be approved urgently. On the other hand, the
end of the fiscal year is full of too much rush season to scrutinize these amount of bills. This
situation forces the legislature to hasty approval of bills without sufficient deliberations.
Furthermore, according to the opinion of the respondents, the executive departments are
reluctant to accommodate the opinions of legislators and stakeholders during the time of
scrutiny. They assume that they are perfect in every issue of the bill and they consider fully the
public interest. This kind of rigidity discourages the rigorous scrutiny of bills - induces the
feeling of “why do we waste our time and effort?”, given the limitations of MPs to convince the
people from the executive departments.

Figure 7: Willingness of the executive departments to welcome opinions of MPs and stakeholders

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

39
Some of the government departments consider the discussions that are held during the bill
formulation around them and their stakeholders as sufficient and enough. Hence, they do not
give weight to the time that must be allotted by the legislature to the participation of
stakeholders. Nevertheless, the perspective of the forums organized by the legislature and by
executive departments is largely different. The perspective of the legislature most of the time
starts from the angle of public interest while the executive most of the time consider the bills
from the view point of administrative suitability and efficient execution of policy.

The other factor for the poor scrutiny of bills is the inadequate participation of stakeholders. Of
course, there have been some bills known for their stakeholders’ participation. For example, the
amendment of the criminal penal code, which lasted for more than a year scrutiny and involved
multiple sections of the society, the new NGO Law, the press and freedom to information Law,
electoral Law are well consulted with concerned stakeholders. Nevertheless, these bills are very
few compared to the bills approved so far - around 760 bills with in 17 years. Still, the great
majority of bills lack participation of the public. It is weak and in a declining trend, as to the
opinion of the participants.

Figure 8: Degree of stakeholders’ participation on legislative and oversight process in

HPR

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

40
According the collected primary data, this problem is justified by the following shortcomings:
One of the causes is lack of due attention and institutional arrangement to make the
participation possible. The existing Committees do not give proper weight to the issue. Most of
the time they invite stakeholders in the last minute and the stakeholders do not have enough
time to prepare to the public hearings. The secretariat is also very weak in facilitating these
preparations. The stakeholders also do not give emphasis to the importance of their
participation in these hearings. They lack proper understanding the stake they have in policy
making. Furthermore, stakeholders tend to ignore participating in public hearings if their
opinions are not included as amendments in the bills under scrutiny. Moreover, they perceive as
everything is predetermined and amendment is impossible. Hence, they tend to conclude that
taking part in these types of hearing is not important.

Even though the enacted laws are applied all over the country, people who are outside the
metropolitan area do not have access to participate in the public hearings. The information
technology would have helped to improve the participation outreach but not harnessed by the
legislature and could not have any significant contribution to that end. The parliament building
that was built 77 year ago is not also compatible to the existing legislature because it lacks
sufficient office rooms, meeting halls and other facilities that are important to entertain public
hearings.
The study has also tried to investigate whether the promulgated bills are in conformity with the
supreme laws. According to the participants’ opinion, there are no bold and widespread
inconsistencies between upper and lower tier of laws but they consider there are some
mismatches. For example:
1. The banking law that allow banks to foreclose property of debtors, who are no more
paying back their debts according the agreement signed, without any intervention of
courts;
2. The law for the administration of governments houses Proclamation No. 555/2000;
3. Different Directives formulated and adopted by the Agency for Government Houses
that does not have the right to make directives by the proclamation.
4. The land lease law that precludes court intervention in land issues;
5. The directive of ERCA that has revoked the duty free right given to PWPs;

41
 6. The law for the establishment of ERCA that allows the director to fire any employee by
citing corruption article without any evidence which makes impossible the employ to
recruit in other jobs;
7. During the Addis Ababa’s charter enactment, some experts of the administration had
made changes that give the administration more power out of the context of decision of
the legislature. As the legislature learnt about the issue, immediately restored the
improper changes and decided measures to be taken on the guilty experts.

Figure 9: Conformity of legislations to supreme laws in Ethiopia

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

Efforts have also made to comprehend if the passed laws are timely supported by subsidiary
legislations and these subsidiary laws are consistent with the main laws. With regard to the
timely preparation of subsidiary legislations by the executive, according to the answer of the
respondents, the researcher has learnt that, it is only partially performed. That means there are a
number of main laws that are not accompanied by subsidiary laws. They were also mentioned
the following examples: the broadcast law, the civil service administration law, the health
insurance law, the land lease law, the human right commission law, the press and freedom to
information law, the employment law for PWDs and so on. Based on the opinion of the
participants, the possible reasons for the absence of subsidiary legislations can be summarized
as follows:

42
 a. Due to their technical nature, they require skilled man power that the executive
departments lack;
b. Lack of diligence and negligence on the part of the executive departments;
c. Failing to prepare the draft subsidiary legislations side by side with the draft of the main
law beforehand;
d. Being busy in routine tasks which have lesser significance than the subsidiary
legislations;
e. Though some laws indicate that they need to have subsidiary legislation, at the end of
the day they have been discovered to be enough by themselves; and
f. The legislature also does not have any mechanism or system to control whether these
types of law are legislated.

Concerning the consistency of secondary legislation with the parent law, the survey results
show that there are significant deviations that create conflict with main law in many executive
departments. However, this issue by itself requires separate and full research. The basic point is
that the legislature fails to have controlling apparatus to correct these anomalies.

Figure 10: Enacted laws, which are supported by subsidiary legislations in Ethiopia

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

43
The final goal of different tiers of law is serving the general public. The public is governed
based on these laws, which contain the rights and responsibilities of every citizen.
Unfortunately, they are hardly accessible to the beneficiaries. For that reason, sometimes some
courts have passed verdict based on revoked laws because they lacked access to the new ones.
The sole publisher and seller of the country’s proclamations and regulations is ‘Berhanina’
‘Selam’ printing press. ‘Berhanina’ ‘Selam’ provides the parliament with only 31 copy of every
law; the rest of the copies are sold in its shopping windows which are only located in its Arat
killo compound, Giorgis, Lideta and Hawassa. It is surprising to see the 82 million Ethiopians
are being served by these shops only. Other persons cannot distribute without the permission of
the printing press. Even the parliament could not post its proclamations because of the
monopole of the printing press. Starting from this year, the parliament is posting laws on the
website based on unilateral decision.

Figure 11: Accessibility of policies and laws to the general public in Ethiopia

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

The possible reasons for the chronic inaccessibility of laws pointed out by the participants are
listed as follow:

44
 i. The first and foremost reason is that the duty does not have owner to which the
responsibility is clearly given and held accountable. The nonexistence of this kind of
body caused to the absence of system based dissemination of laws;
ii. Inability of the legislature to revoke the traditional monopoly right of the printing press
on public laws;
iii. Given its limited distribution, its price is not considering the purchasing power of the
general public (it is relatively expensive);
iv. There is a tradition of hiding regulations and directives in the government departments
that aggravates the inaccessibility problem;
v. Though there is an IT infrastructure in the parliament, it is not utilized as required and
its contribution is minimal as outlet of passed laws. It has a critical shortage of
proficient manpower.
vi. There is no synergy and coordinated effort between the federal and state legislatures to
promote and to expand the outreach of passed laws in the state and local administration
levels.

b. The Budget Process

A budget is a document, which contains planed expenditures and revenues. It is also the law by
which all policies and programs are implemented and it confers the legislature with “power of
the purse”. The national budget process is another manifestation of policy making of the
legislature. Even though the process of examining of budget bill is similar to the other bills, it is
important to see separately due to its great significance.
According to the Constitution of FDRE (1995, Article 77/3) the federal budget document is
drawn up by the council of ministers which is drafted under the auspice of MoFED. As the
draft budget is supported by the council of ministers, it will be submitted to the HPR. Except
where there is force majeure, the draft budget must be presented to the HPR one month prior to
the new fiscal year. The draft budget should be submitted to the HPR in the form of: summary,
detailed and, draft proclamation volumes.

After the submission of the budget draft to the House, the minister of MoFED is required to
deliver his budget speech to the House based on the general principles of the budget bill and
deliberation is conducted focusing on general issues of the draft budget. The minister of

45
MoFED is also expected to react on the issues forwarded by members of the house. When the
first round deliberation is ended, the draft budget is referred to the Budget and Finance Affairs
Standing Committee for further scrutiny. Then, the committee examines the draft budget
carefully for almost a week. For more clarification, the committee invites the officials and
experts of the MoFED to give their witness about the document and testimonial discussion is
made. In this discussion, questions that are raised in the plenary session and in the committee
meeting will be forwarded and answered by the officials. The minutes of the discussion will be
recorded in audio form and transcribed to hard copy in the coming few days.

The next step is organizing public hearing. The committee announces publicly to invite the
public to participate in the hearing either in person, by written letter, by telephone or by fax
mail. Moreover, it sends invitation letters to the identified stakeholders that represent all
segments of the society. Further, it invites all standing committees and MPs of the house to
participate in the public hearing. The committee also must send the budget draft documents that
comprise the summary volume, the detailed volume, the draft proclamation and the budget
speech to all invited stakeholders ten days prior to the public hearing so as to have enough time
to read. What’s more, the officials and experts of the MoFED will also be invited to the hearing
to give further clarification and to hear the comments and critiques forwarded by the
participants. After the necessary preparations, the public hearing will be conducted for a whole
day and if needed it could be held for the second time. The minutes of the hearing is also
recorded in similar way as mentioned above. This type of public hearing is aimed at collecting
public opinions.

Once scrutiny is finalized, the committee prepares report and resolution proposal and submit it
to the speaker in similar way to the procedure of other bills. By consulting the business
advisory committee, the speaker arranges time for detailed debate of the House on the budget
bill, second reading. The detailed deliberation of the house on the draft budget will be held
sector by sector for at least two days. The draft bill is commented and criticized by different
parliamentary groups. In this step, members and parliamentary groups can forward cut motions
either policy cut or economic cut which was submitted to the speaker one day prior to the
debate. Cut motions are voted one by one and it is supposed that the motion that is supported

46
will take effect in the budget document. This debate is also aired on live TV and radio
broadcast to the public.

As sector by sector deliberation is concluded, the Budget and Finance Affairs Standing
Committee presents its report and resolution proposal to the House. To this day, the detailed
debate on the draft budget continues to take place. At this event, customarily, the Prime
Minister will be available to disclose the stance of his government related to the budget bill.
Finally, the committee chair can react, if any, on issues reflected during the debate and the
budget bill will be voted to become a law. Once the budget process procedure is elaborated, it
is essential to address the limitations of the process.

Since budget process is a part of the law making process, the challenges that have been
undergone in other law making processes mostly occur in the budget process. Therefore, in this
section the researcher focused on the peculiarities of the budget process. Budget process has
four different stages: drafting, legislating, execution and audit. The budget drafting stage is a
mandate of the executive and the involvement of the parliament is rare. However, at this stage,
the budget committee of the legislature is invited to attend the budget hearing of the
`government departments organized by MoFED, though it does not exert any influence to the
stage. After the hearing is over, MoFED compiles and submits the budget documents to the
council of ministers. Once the council of ministers made deliberations and necessary
adjustments, it submits to the legislature for approval. The involvement of the legislature in the
budget process is boldly manifested by scrutinizing and approving it. Therefore, legislative
stage is the most relevant stage to the parliament.

During the 1996-2000 and 2001-2005 tenures of the parliament, the budget scrutiny has been
highly deficient in terms of time. It has been approved without necessary discussions. In the
year 2001 fiscal year, the national budget was delayed to the extent that it was approved after
three months passed from the beginning of the fiscal year. Whereas since 2005, the third term
of the legislature, there have been changes in terms of better scrutiny and time allocation
because the new RPMCR (2006) stipulates that the budget draft must be submitted one month
prior to the new fiscal year and specifies the minimum deliberations that must be undertaken

47
over it. Given the improvements, still limitations are noticed in terms of time allocation and
quality of scrutiny similar to the scrutiny of other bills.
The specified time is not practically put in place fully. Most of the time, a week at the
beginning of the month and another week at end of the month is deducted from the earmarked
30 days. It shows late referral to the concerned committee and early approval of the budget bill.
Therefore, the constraint of time makes difficult to carryout substantive deliberations by
involving stakeholders as required. It is, by far, inadequate compared to the international
parliamentary experiences that extend from three to four months on average. The time
constraint coupled with the lack of consideration to the public involvement in the legislative
process have been reducing the quality and effectiveness of the budget scrutiny like other bills.
Though the examination of the budget document requires highly qualified personnel, the
Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee is not supported by such technical personnel.
The bulky document is scrutinized only by own capacity of the committee members. Even if
we assume that sufficient time has been allocated, it would be impossible to make robust
scrutiny without proficient supportive human resources. Furthermore, budget document is
concerned with all public sectors and departments that demands concerted effort of all
committees of the house which oversee the performance of public departments and have
enough information about each executive department. Nevertheless, in reality the role of other
committees of the House is minimal and entails improvement.

Figure 12: The opinion of respondents on the extent of budget scrutiny in terms allotted
time and quality

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

48
The last issue that must be considered in the legislative stage is the procedure of budget
approval of the public institutions, which are specified by the constitution directly to submit to
and approve their budget by the legislature. These institutions are the HPR, HoF, the Federal
Supreme Court, the OFAG and the Commission for Population and Housing Census. Despite
the stipulation of the constitution, these institutions have been obliged to submit their budget
through MoFED that imposes on them budget ceiling. Although the institutions frequently
asked for compliance with the constitutional procedure, neither MoFED nor the legislature has
realized their demand. After 2005, however, the HPR made a little bit change on its own budget
approval procedure. The draft budget of the house is prepared by the secretariat of the House
based on MoFED ceiling. Then the draft budget is sent to the budget committee of the House
through the speaker. After the committee review, the draft budget is sent to MoFED. As soon
as the MoFED finished its scrutiny on the draft budget of HPR, discussions will be held with
the budget committee to negotiate on the details. However, MoFED has the power to reject the
opinions of the committee on the grounds of resource scarcity. After the discussions with
MoFED, the committee composes a report concerned with the process of discussions and points
of agreements and differences. Then the committee submits its repot to the speaker along with
the draft budget and minutes of the discussions attached. Finally, the speaker forwards the draft
budget of the House to the business advisory committee that has the power to take the final
decision on the draft budget of the House. Nevertheless, the committee doesn’t challenge the
decision made by MoFED. Even though the committee has the mandate to decide on the budget
of the legislature, there is no experience that show any change on the MoFED’s proposal by it.
According to the researcher’s opinion, the reason is inability of the committee members to
convince MoFED.

The HoF, the Supreme Court and the OFAG, however, even could not obtain the opportunity of
direct scrutiny of their budget by the HPR. These institutions have deliberately established by
the constitution to counterbalance the executive and they need to be independent from the
executive’s influence in allocation of resources. The power to decide the budget of these
institutions is clearly identified by the constitution to be as a mandate of HPR. However, this
constitutional provision is not in place in the legislature.

49
Budget execution is a core mandate of the executive. On the other hand, the legislature can
contribute indirectly to the execution of budget by involving in the oversight activities. Since
oversight function is addressed separately in the next section, it is worthwhile to pass to the
audit stage of the budget process. The mandate to audit to executed budget or public spending
is vested in OFAG by the constitution (1995) Article 101(2). Accordingly, OFAG has been
auditing the public departments for the last 17 years although its audit coverage was very
minimal until recent years. Whereas, according to the OFAG report, which presented to the
HPR on 03 May 2012, its audit coverage reached 92.07% of the 164 government budgetary
departments, which is a dramatic improvement. The OFAG is directly accountable to the
parliament and it can be considered as its long arm in overseeing public money spending in the
government departments. The OFAG was overseen by budget and finance affairs standing
committee until 2006. However since 2007 PAC, chaired by opposition, is established in the
parliament and the responsibility of overseeing of OFAG is transferred from budget committee
to it.

Throughout the last 17 years tenure of HPR, the OFAG has made important auditing activities
that assist the legislature’s oversight function. Though there have been improvements from year
to year, it is also undeniable that irregularities have been revealed concurrent to the
improvements. The OFAG has been reporting annually many adverse opinions, disclaimer
opinions, over budget spending, under budget spending and violation of financial rules in
spending budget and collecting revenue. These irregularities are financial law offences and they
need quick action and justification. However, these types of breaches have been recurring in
many of the public departments. Every year, the same report has been presented to the
legislature. The legislature never sent a single letter to the executive to take measure over the
public departments that frequently violate financial laws or never recalled officials of the
offender public departments to the floor to justify the audit findings before the legislature. As
the legislature opted to calm after every audit report, the wrongdoers never took lesson from
their weaknesses. This issue is the most important loophole revealed in the parliament in the
last 17 years concerned with budge process. In the most of developed world, these issues are
cause of vote of confidence or vote of no confidence.

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In the last two years, however, encouraging improvements have been observed. The PAC along
with the OFAG have summoned the departments that violate financial laws critically and
frequently to justify to their offence in the public hearing. Since they are criticized and exposed
before the audience they tend to internalize and correct the irregularities. They are required to
prepare action plan by which the corrective measures fully be undertaken and to report to the
committee as the corrective measure is completed. The OFAG is also happy with the current
good start of the committee. Only in the year 2012 around 30 public departments have been
summoned in that way and have shown significant improvements.

The final point in the auditing stage is the problem related to the audit that has to be made on
the block grant given to the states. According to the constitution (1995) Article 94 /2, the
federal government has the mandate to audit the block grant given to the states. However, the
regional states do not use separate account to the block grant, it is used in a mixed manner with
their revenue, and it is difficult to make audit as well as to prosecute those who abuse the
public money by federal EAC. The solution underway is carrying out the audit while it is
mixed by OFAG and by the states’ audit offices unilaterally that caused duplication of audit.
For the future, OFAG has proposed single audit Act and sent to PAC that helps to rule out the
duplication of audit by federal and state audit offices which is based on American experience.

4.2. The Oversight Process

One of the core functions of the legislature is overseeing the executive departments on how the
policies of the government are implemented and public resources are utilized. The oversight
activities of the legislature are confined only to the federal government mandates. It is aimed at
supervising if rule of law, democracy, good governance, peace and security, human rights,
balanced development of all regions and utilization of public funds are properly managed.
The oversight function can be implemented in different aspects including scrutinizing executive
plans and reports, hearing the reports of the executive bodies in committee and House level,
conducting field visits to see what is going on the ground, questioning the ministers including
the PM before the House, managing the representation reports, using the reports of the Office
of the Auditor General (OFAG) on public funds and properties. The reports of the Human
Right Commission (HRC), the Ombudsman and the Ethics and Anti corruption Commission

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(EACC) also are used as inputs of the oversight functions. Further, the public petitions,
grievances and tips are important facts that support to the oversight activity.

Every year the joint session of the two houses, HoF and HPR, is held in the last Monday of
September EC. In this session the president makes opening speech by which the annual plan of
intention of the government is reflected focusing on core issues. These core blue print issues
are the bases for the oversight process. Beyond this plan, each of the pubic department is
required to get ready its own plan. Based on this plan, each standing committee of the House
scrutinizes the departmental plan, makes necessary modifications, and hence creates common
understanding over it.

Executive departments are obliged to submit their quarterly performance reports to the standing
committees based on their plans. These types of reports are thoroughly examined by the
committees in every quarter and feed backs of the committees are consolidated and sent to the
concerned department. Each department must appear before the committee or the House at least
once in a year to present and defend its report. During the presentations of these reports, the
departments are questioned and critiqued by the committee or by the House based on the
previously organized facts and at the end of the sessions directions are given by the committee
or by the House.
The other means of conducting oversight is questioning ministers including the PM. The House
can question any minister once a week and the prime minister once in a month for an hour.
There is also monthly an opposition day through which the oppositions can present agenda to
be discussed by the House. When members of the executive are questioned, they can only
answer orally. The question hour held with the presence of the MP is aired by live broadcasting
of state media.

The oversight function can also be done by means of field visit, which helps to understand what
is going on in practice. This way of oversight is very crucial because it can help to compare and
contrast with the previously set plans and performance reports. Apart from on the spot
observation, discussions are made with respective offices of the executive department and the
local community to generate additional information.

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The information of the field visit needs to be evaluated. Strengths, weaknesses and issues that
require special attention must be identified and sent to the concerned parties as feedbacks.
Furthermore, as the executive department presents its report to the committee or to the House,
the main findings of the field visit are forwarded in the form of questions and opinions by the
concerned MPs. The field visit reports are also sent to the speaker and government chief whip
as well as to the council of ministers through the speaker for necessary rectification to be made
by the executive.

There are institutions directly accountable to the legislature such as the OFAG, HRC and the
Ombudsman. These institutions are considered as arms of the legislature because they play
significant role in overseeing the executive’s performance. Their reports are basic inputs of
oversight activity of the legislature. In addition to this, information that come from the general
public and public offices are also taken as input in the oversight process.

So far, the general procedures of the House in performing its oversight function are discussed.
It is more important to address the limitations of the oversight function. The researcher’s
assessment based on the collected data from the legislature shows several limitations of that
parliamentary function. The first limitation is related to the scrutiny of plans and reports of the
executive departments. As standing committees scrutinize the plans and reports, they
recommend important verbal feedbacks on the spot and in written terms. Although officials of
the departments show their nod during the meetings, in practice they show lack of internalizing
the feedbacks and the same issues are discovered in subsequent times.

According to the participants of the study, there is a reluctance of the executive departments to
accept the feedbacks forwarded by the legislature though its degree differs from department to
department. Even if they accept during the discussions, they lag behind to translate in to
practice because they do not internalize the feedbacks. As it was made clear in the budget
process section, the reports of the Auditor General and its main findings have not given due
attention either by the executive departments or by the legislature. For that reason the executive
departments have considered the HPR and the OFAG as toothless institutions.

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Figure 13: Opinion of participants on the extent of measures taken on noncompliant
departments

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

Further limitation is deficiency of public involvement in the oversight process. When a public
department presents its report in person to a standing committee, the only means for the public
to participate is sending messages through telephone, fax and post. There is no procedure that
enables the public to participate in person during the reporting. Although there is a tendency of
posing personal problems by the public during the reporting, it is important creating a means
that allows the public to participate in such meetings. This issue can be taken as the limitation
of the reporting procedure of the legislature.

The field visit also has its own limitations. Some committees lack conducting selective field
visits and have planning problems. Despite the improvement of field trip activities in the fourth
tenure of the legislature, several restraining problems have been observed. Even though it is
important in gauging the performance of the executive departments, less attention has been
given by the leadership of the house. Instead of insisting for resources, the leadership tends to
cut the field visit programs of standing committees. There has been controversy with the
MoFED concerned with oversight budget in the budget scrutiny stages. Usually the MoFED
has been earmarking insufficient budget to the HPR in its budget proposals. The parliament
does not possess vehicle that is qualified to the field work. The vehicles are not only
insufficient in number but also very old in status. The fuel and repair budget allotted to these
vehicles for the oversight function is also very minimal because of the level given to the HPR
by the MoFED that considering the HPR is one of the public offices do not have field work

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which is level 5 and later improved to level 4. However, the House has the responsibility to
witness at the spot the work of around 160 budgetary public departments and hundreds of
programs and projects of the government. In addition to the low remuneration of per diem and
accommodation, the oversight field visit was not more than a single time a year for a committee
because of budget contraint. The MoFED has been daring to the extent that suggesting how
much field trips of the House there should be. As the budget document of HPR indicated most
of the time, more than 70% of the budget has been salary while operational budget has been
insignificant. The participants of the study have been requested to rank three foremost problems
of the house in their order of priority and they responded resource constraint of the House as a
number one problem as shown in figure 14. Therefore, we can conclude that one of the main
constraints to the oversight function was lack of resource that is key for its implementation.

Figure 14: Perception of participants on relative significance of the problems of the House

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

Questioning cabinet members is a good practice. This activity must be done effectively for the
future by relating to the field trip and constituency activity. The current questioning has its
limitations. So far, many questions have been forwarded based on the oversight findings and
constituency issues. Nevertheless, as the participants indicated, significant number of the issues
has been continued unsolved. The other weakness reflected during the question time was some

55
questions were prepared by another person not by the presenter, though it was corrected later.
This incident can damage the interest of MPs to prepare their own questions. If MPs are
encouraged to forward their own questions the discussion will be live and capturing to the
audience.

Figure 15: Opinion of participants in the overall effectiveness of oversight function of HPR

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

The participants tried to indicate why some of the executive officials reflect reluctance to
welcome the oversight feedbacks of the legislature as follows:
a. Lack of proper understanding and acknowledgement as to the supremacy of the house;
b. Considering the role of the legislature as less important in the sense that it cannot do
significant activity or cannot generate constructive ideas that can help to the better
implementation of policy;
c. The attitude of “we know everything more than the legislature” and ignoring the
feedbacks of legislators.
d. Overlooking that the officials are accountable to the voter through the elected and
missing it to consider as fundamental characteristic of democratic system.
e. Following hypocritical approach instead of accepting or rejecting candidly the
recommendations forwarded by the legislature;
f. Considering the legislature as fault finding rather than supporting institution;
g. Measures have not been taken on those who do not accept reliable feedbacks given by
the legislature that encourage them to continue rejecting constructive opinions.

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 4.3. Representation Function
The representation function can also be taken as part of the oversight since all deputies
regularly visit their constituencies and discuss with their electorate. This activity is helpful to
establish transparency and accountability of the legislature and let the electorate to voice their
demands and discontents about development issues, governance, democracy and peace and
security of their localities. Although the representation function can be undertaken at any time,
it is regularly held during the recess of the legislature twice a year from July - September and
in February. The transport cost and 25 days per diem is covered by the House.

During representation activity, deputies can discuss on issues concerned with any
administrative level. However, their main focus will be on federal issues. The issues raised by
the electorate related to the local and regional administrations can be discussed with the
concerned administrative tiers. As far as the federal issues are concerned, MPs are required to
compose their reports and submit them to their respective parliamentary groups within few
days after their return from their constituency.

Parliamentary groups have to summarize the reports of their members by sorting sector wise.
They send their reports to the speaker as well as concerned standing committees. The RPMCR
allows the House to call the executive departments to present their report or to answer
questions related to the representation activities. Each MP can also deal with the concerned
executive department individually so as to solve his/her constituency problems.

Figure 16: Opinion of respondents on the degree of problem solving effect of the representation
function

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

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The researcher tried to assess the limitation of the representation function. Most MPs visit their
constituency and hold discussions with their electorate once a year until the third term and
twice a year in the fourth term. The reason why MPs visit their constituencies not more than
once a year is justified by a budget constraint by the leadership. Even for one trip a year, MPs
have been compelled to incur accommodation costs by themselves. Since 2011, however, the
trip has changed to two times a year and the accommodation allowance has also covered by the
House. The real cause for the weak constituency activity is not a matter of budget but a matter
of consideration. In the second term some leaders of the ruling party in the House have dared to
inhibit constituency visit of MPs for the reason that the public has elected the party not
individual MPs and no need of visit of individual MPs since the party is there. Though the
argument was defeated, the annual visit program has been cancelled because of the denial of
budget. Therefore the main problem has been the negligent attitude of the leadership about the
representation function of the legislature. The electorate has the right to be heard by the party
and at the same time by the elected individual. It is also very important to the legislature to
create a link with the public through the individual MPs to get sufficient information, which is
beneficial to its business.

The issues and problems raised by the electorate and collected by MPs have been reported
every year to the leadership of the House. Based on these issues, the House and the standing
committees try to question and to forward their opinions to the concerned executive officials by
recalling them. Although they always pledge they would solve the problems, things have been
remained in their status quo for a long time. This parliamentary function has been a boring
activity of the legislature because it could not bring about reasonable solutions to the problems,
which were frequently raised by the electorate.

Every year MPs write the same report and they have been disappointed by their constituency
activity. So do the electorate. As problems remain unsolved, MPs individually try to ease the
problems by lobbying the executive departments. However, this effort has also faced
prohibition by the whips for the reason that the executive departments are disturbed by MPs
though the restraint was unrealized. If electorate’s opinion and demand had properly organized
and analyzed, they would have been a source of policy initiation and formulation to the

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government. They could have also played to counterbalance the incorrect reports of some
administrative levels. However, the information collected by MPs from their constituencies has
been shelved without any use.

4.4. Entertaining Public Petitions and Grievances

The parliament and its standing committees pay attention to the public petitions and grievances
arising from maladministration of the executive departments. These considerations are done
carefully and the legislature is restrained from interfering to the day-to- day activities of the
executive departments and verdict of courts as well as court cases on process. However, the
information generated in the form of petition; grievance and tip can help the legislature and the
standing committees to understand the performance of the executive departments. These inputs
can be related to the formal performance reports, field visits and representation activities which
altogether are important to validate the real performance of the executive departments. There is
interdependence between different sources of information that enable the legislature to
comprehend the reality on the ground. Based on the petitions and grievances the legislature
either may summon the concerned executive department to report before the House or it could
discuss on them during the regular reporting time in the House or committee level.
This function can be considered as an emerging activity of the HPR. Currently, there is an
apprehension of the House that, due to lack of awareness, the public may use it incorrectly by
forwarding all judicial and administrative appeals. Therefore, the RPMCR (2006: Article 86)
confines the mandate of the House only to accept information and tips that can be used in
future scrutiny along with general issues. Though a lot of information is submitted to the House
and to the standing committees, it is not common summoning of the executive officials who
caused the petition and the grievance. This procedure is established to reinforce good
governance and to make problems solved. However, it is not boldly being performed in that
regard. The figure shown below illustrates its low performance.

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Figure 17: Respondents’ opinion on the relative performance of the parliamentary
functions of the Ethiopian legislature

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

4.5. Party discipline

The internal debate that takes place among legislators is the main factor to the good quality of
bill scrutiny in any legislature. In HPR, however, this kind of debate is usually faint and is not
fully realized. This weakness can be partly caused by the incompetence and lack of
commitment of MPs as indicated in the previous sections. Nevertheless, in the legislative
process there have been dilemmas that most of the MPs are facing during parliamentary debate.
The MPs, on the one hand, have to be governed by the constitution, by the will of people and
by their conscience; on the other hand since they are members of political party, they must be
governed by their party policy. If issues are raised that entail choosing one among the
alternatives, the dilemma is inevitable. Most of the time, MPs are abided by their party
discipline whether the issue is concerned with policy or not. They always give precedence to
the party discipline even if they have significant reservations. Among the participants, 63% of
them have been confronted with contentious issues during their stay in the legislature and the

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rest have not. Out of the 63% only one person in a single time has voted contrary to the party
position but in later time he took self criticism in his caucus for violating party discipline.

Figure 18: Number of MPs who faced controversial issues to take position

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

It is obvious that there is no policy difference within a political party. Nevertheless, it does not
mean that the aforementioned two choices are irreconcilable. They can be reconciled and
aligned if modalities are established. The first means of establishing modality is that members
of parliament must discuss on the debating issues through parliamentary groups or caucuses so
as to have their voice and to create consensus among themselves. First of all, MPs must discus
the general policy guideline that is approved by the party leadership and executive according to
the constitution (1995, Article 55/10) because it is the basis for any draft bill to be legislated by
the House. Secondly, MPs need to discus, prior to the first reading, on the draft bill to make
clarity and to reflect their differences on the issues of the draft bill. Even during the plenary
session, MPs should have the right to oppose to the point they do not want to be part of the
Law. However, at the time of voting, they must support their party position. Otherwise, they
have to resign from their party membership to promote their own objection. Despite the
importance of intraparty discussions to the quality of law making and oversight process, they
are hardly performed in the legislature.

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The other point concerned with the party discipline is that MPs traditionally restrain from
expressing their opinions in all issues indiscriminately. Whether the issues are related to policy
or policy implementation, MPs have the right to debate. Moreover, even they have the right to
record their points of difference on non-policy issues. Most MPs, however, are blurred in
identifying policy and non policy issues. Usually they prefer to be calm in all issues for the
sake of party discipline. For example, MPs can oppose if bills are proposed to be approved by
motion without any significant deliberations. This is the issue of procedure insisting bills to be
referred to and securitized by a concerned committee. Nevertheless, during the land lease
legislation by means of motion, for example, most MPs have been disappointed though no one
is explicitly opposed the procedure. Even though the RPMCP(2006) stipulates that any
document to be disseminated before 48 hours of the plenary session, the land lease bill,
however, has been disseminated before 18 hours, which was not enough, even to read the draft
bill and it would have deserved opposing this type of procedure at the spot.

The issues of performance reports and weaknesses witnessed during oversight activity can also
be objected and criticized by MPs. Though there have been observed moderate questions and
opinions, strong critiques and objections have been forwarded insufficiently in the plenary
session while in the committee’s meeting have been better done as the opinion of most of the
respondents. The scantiness of strong opinions and objections in the plenary session is
dominantly caused by apprehension of party discipline.

It is also possible opposing the appointment of officials because it is not a policy issue.
According to the veteran MPs’ respondents, the HPR had an experience occurred in the second
tenure of the legislature that it opposed and rejected the appointment of the then minister of
information as member and chairman of management board of ERTA. Although the Law for
the establishment of ERTA requires its direct accountability to the parliament through its
management board that is appointed by the House, the appointment proposal included the
minister of information as chair man of the board. However, at the meantime majority of the
House opposed and rejected the proposal for fear that the public media will be dominated by
the executive, which is contrary to the Law of establishment of ERTA. The justification of the
legislature for rejecting the proposal has been based on logical and legitimate arguments. Even
so, following the rejection of the proposal, the party wing heads in the parliament summoned

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caucus meeting through which members of the ruling party have been evaluated, criticized and
intimidated to change their position on the appointment proposal. After the caucus meeting, the
next session of the legislature has been held and the previous decision has been reversed. This
experience has left its own negative impact on freedom of expression of MPs.

Therefore, it is valuable to comprehend the difference between the policy and non policy issues
and to comply with full right of MPs freely to express their ideas up to taking position on non
policy issues during the plenary debates. The aforementioned misunderstandings and practices
have negatively contributed to the quality of law making and oversight function of the
legislature.

4.6. Role of Media to the Functions of HPR

The other limiting factor to the quality of the legislative and oversight process is the role of
media. Media have important role in promoting and supporting of the parliamentary activities.
Even though there are several public and private media in the country, they have no equal
importance to the parliament and the role of ERTA is magnified in supporting of its function.
However, ERTA has not played its role as expected in disseminating reliable legislative
information to the general public. The legislature is not communicating well with the voters
through the media. It is obvious that the legislative scrutiny and most oversight activities are
taking place at the standing committees’ level in closed meeting halls. More than 90% work of
the legislature is done under the auspice of the committees. If the work of a committee is
hidden, so is the work of a legislature. The general public does not have the opportunity to
know about the national issues being discussed within each standing committee though most of
the issues discussed in the committee level are imposing obligations and conferring rights to the
citizens.

Of course the public media entertains some coverage of news, which is mostly fragmented,
distorted and less substantive. According to most of the respondents, when the reporters of
ERTA make news on issues of standing committees’ meetings, the orientation of their reporting
is on what the executive officials said usually magnifying only their performance achievements

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not what the standing committees questioned, said, suggested, etc. They do not have patience to
attend what the standing committees questioned and suggested to the executive departments
during the meetings. The respondents have also observed some reflection of discriminatory
approaches of some ERTA reporters and editors in entertaining different news ranging from
omission to discriminating in airing frequency of news. The reporters and editors usually show
bored attitude of reporting parliamentary activities, which is expressed frequently in their own
words in different occasions. Although ERTA editors and reporters have been asked frequently
to improve their service to the parliament, in the third term, they have claimed that they had
simply followed their own editorial policies.

Figure 19: the respondents’ opinion on the extent of media support to the legislative and
oversight process in HPR

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

Programs have not been made based on the demands of the standing committees except
upholding the interest of ERTA reporters and editors. The parliament had its own TV air time
on Saturday and Sunday for last 16 years. However, this year the program is cancelled by the
consent of the leadership of the House for the reason that it was unattractive and it will be
substituted by another better program. Based on this decision, time has been assigned for 15-20
minutes a week and even it is cancelled frequently due to other current prime issues. The
researcher wants to underscore that the time allotted to report the activities of the legislature, by

64
which the legislative and oversight function of around 160 public departments is made, is
extremely insufficient. It is appreciable that ERTA has assigned reporters to the new program
(the 15-20 minutes time) and they are doing their best to cover the plenary sessions’
discussions and the field visit observations. Since they have time constraint their reports
become outdated until their broadcast. Sessions of standing committees are still not covered by
the media though they have ample importance to the public. In every interim evaluation of the
coordinating committee of the House grievances have been persisted about ERTA for the last
seven years but improvements are slow. This type of role of the media has negatively affected
the quality of law making and oversight process as well as the overall image of the legislature.

4.7. Resource and the legislature

The researcher has already tried to address the resource problem of the legislature in oversight
section. However, since the resource problems suggested by the participants are multitude, it is
important to assess separately. When we talk of the resource of the House, we are examining
the needs of 547 MPs, the speaker, the deputy speaker, the government chief whip and the 4
assistant chief whips, whips of parliamentary groups, 16 standing committees, one advisory
committee, one coordinating committee, 18 friendship groups and the the secretariat at large.
These constituents of the legislature require a reasonable supply of resource to perform their
duties and responsibilities. They need qualified supporting staff. They need suitable and
conducive working environment which comprises standard and sufficient office rooms,
meeting halls, audiovisual services, modern and well organized libraries and information
centers, equipped IT infrastructure, office equipments like computers, printers, fax machines,
laptops, photocopiers, scanners and telephones. They also need vehicles along with their
complements which are compatible to the parliament in terms of quality and quantity.
Similarly, they should receive decent health care services, remunerations including housing
and accommodation allowances, per diem and retirement benefits and so on. The reasonable
provision of these resources make the MPs more responsible and motivated.

The resource currently available to the parliament , however, is by far under standard in terms
of quantity and quality. Of course, there is slight improvement in supply of cars, computers,

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laptops, and office furniture in the fourth tenure of the House but it is insignificant compared to
the need and these resources are mostly supplied by UNDP’s DIP which is a short-lived donor.
The expenditures of the fourth tenure field trip oversight activities have been also covered by
DIP. The allocation of resources from the treasury is highly conservative which ignores core
parliamentary functions which are the legislative, the oversight and the representation
functions. These parliamentary functions require significant allocation of human and material
resources but not in HPR’s case. The parliament is still working in a premise ,which was built
77 years ago, that is overcrowded and unfriendly for the work of the parliament.

Figure 20: The opinion of respondents on the logistical and professional support in the legislature

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

The legislature is being supported by only around 350 civil servants among them not more
than 15 junior professionals. Senior professionals could not be retained in the parliament
because the overall benefits and privileges as well as the working environment is not attractive
to them. Almost all works of standing committees are done with members’ own capacity. This
reality can tell us how far the quality of legislative and oversight functions are affected. The
MPS are always strangers and they don’t have deep knowledge about the parliamentary
functions they do. Due to this reason standing committees have been forced to start from zero
every term of the legislature because of the absence of experts who can bridge the activities of
one committee to another. The audiovisual section of the House is not well equipped and it
does not possess sufficient professionals.The quantity and the quality of its cameras, recording
machines, sound system installations, and their accessories do not match with the vast and

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intense work of the legislature and it is not digitalized. The library of the House has been
denied of due attention. Based on the current status, it cannot be helpful as a source of
information to the legislature. The researcher was highly in need of books related to policy and
legislature, but nothing was found from the library. It lacks enough space and sufficient
updated sources of information. The existing IT infrastructure has a problem of under
utilization and it is not supporting the legislative and oversight process as expected. Its main
drawback seems lack of professionals.

According to most of the responednts, the MPs are still in short of vehicles, computers,
photocopiers, and laptops which are no more problems in other executive departments and
agencies. From the parliament, the MPs who are eligible to use a vehicle individually are only
the speaker, the deputy speaker, the government chief whip and the 4 assistant chief whips who
have defined status that enables them to get all benefits and privileges. The rest of MPs use the
pool by under standard vehicles which are not appropriate to their business. Of course this year,
16 pick up vehicles are purchased using the DIP fund and money generated from sold scrap
vehicles only for the purpose of field visits and it has resulted in a little improvemet of the
facility. The MPs are also disappointed by the health care service, remunerations and
allowances they are provided by the parliament and they are dissatisfied about their retirement
benefits and privileges. All these material and psychological discontents of MPs could severely
affect to the quality of policy making process in the parliament. If these discouraging factors
are continued, it is difficult to get competent candidates in the next elections leading the
parliament to deterioration which in turn resulting in poor quality of policy making process.

4.8. The general trend of the legislature

Participants have been asked to give their opinions on the general trend of the legislature in the
last 17 years of its tenure. All their answers are very promising and reflect the bright future of
the legislature. In terms of facility, in the first term MPs have been travelling by a taxi to attend
parliamentary sessions and have been incurring full costs of representation activities but now
these are no more problems, given the quality problem of vehicles. Plenary sessions have been
using a single Mic for every MP to speak while today sound systems have installed in several

67
meeting rooms. The number of mini conference rooms have also increased significantly from
three rooms to one to each committee. The committees’ offices have improved from a single
room to three rooms. Likewise, in this term, there are some improvements in provision of some
computers, printers, fax machines, laptops and office furniture to the standing committees
which were in lack of this office equipments.

The institutional posture of the parliament, similarly, has shown significant progress. The
composition of MPs has been changing from uneducated to educated considering more than
75% of MPs are degree holders that is helpful to enhance the capacity of the parliament (The
Researcher’s own data). The gender composition has been changed from 13 in the first term to
153 in the fourth term(HPR website, 2012). The number of the standing committees and the
approximate number of their members has been changed from 9 and 120 in the first term to 16
and 300 in the fourth term respectively and one of these committees is PAC which is chaired by
opposition. The number of public departments assigned to be overseen by each committee have
also increased proportionately. The parliament has developed the best Rules of Procedures and
Members’ Code of Conduct which is supported by about 28 detailed directives starting from
the third term, given the limitations putting them to practice.

Figure 21: Respondents’ opinion on the general trend of the legislature in performing its
constitutional responsibilities

Source: The Researcher’s own data (March, 2012)

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As a result of relative improvement in the strength of MPs and standing committees, the
functions of the legislature have, similarly, shown progress in the areas of oversight, budget
scrutiny and representation activities. The oversight function has becoming an outshining
activity of the House since the last two years. It seems that the ruling party has realized that the
absence of the opposition in the House can create gap in watching implementation weaknesses
of the executive and should be redressed by promoting oversight activities of the House.

In the first two terms the budget scrutiny was not paid due attention by the House but starting
from the third term a month is dedicated for its scrutiny, given the implementation limitations.
Even the representation activities have begun to be led by the plan of the House in the last two
years. In spite of the fact that Ethiopia has been under the monarchic and dictatorial regimes
for millennia, in the last 17 years, however, the exercise of multi party parliamentary
democracy of the nation has registered promising achievements starting from scratch.
Especially in the third tenure of the parliament the institutional and procedural arrangements
have been well established.

To ease the problem of media, the legislature is also trying to organize its own group of
reporters and studios and starting self controlled programs, though they have their own
limitations. Due to these reasons more than 94% of the participants have believed that the
legislature have generally shown good or very good improvements in performing its
constitutional responsibilities in the last 17 years.

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 Chapter Five

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

So far the researcher has tried to give the readers a vivid image as to the parliamentary policy
making process in Ethiopia. More or less, all the core problems have been addressed and the
causes of the problems are also reflected. In this chapter, the researcher has endeavored to
identify the major issues that need further attention and to suggest possible remedies.

Despite that the HPR is an infant legislature, its track record and general trend during the last
17 years is appreciable. Although infant parliaments do not necessarily need to undergo the
Westminster evolutionary path, attaining the current stance of the HPR within the current
political economy of the nation is not easy task. In spite of the fact that Ethiopia has been
under the monarchic and dictatorial regimes for millennia, in the last 17 years, however, the
exercise of multi party parliamentary democracy of the nation has registered encouraging
achievements starting from the scratch.

Especially in the third tenure of the parliament the institutional and procedural arrangements
have been well established. The parliament has developed world class Rules of Procedures and
Members’ Code of Conduct Regulation approved after negociation with the oppositin parties
which had parliametary seats. The Regulation has been supported by about 28 detailed
directives that are fundamentals for the institutionalization of the legislature. As a result of
incremental improvement in the capability of MPs and standing committees, the functions of
the legislature have, similarly, shown progress in the areas of oversight, budget scrutiny and
representation activities. The limitations addressed in this research must be considered in the
context of positive trend and infancy of the legislature.

5.1. Conclusions

5.1.1 It has been discovered that the general policy guidelines of different sectors are not only
initiated and formulated but also adopted by the executive. Nevertheless, the adoption
of general policy is vested in the legislature by the constitution. Moreover, these general
policies are the premises of the draft bills which would be scrutinized and adopted by

70
 the legislature. The perspective of the legislature in scrutinizing the bills is based on
these broad policy guidelines. Even though the MPs are abided by the general policies
due to the party discipline, they don’t have the opportunity to have their voices in
adopting them.

5.1.2 The other identified critical problem related to the law making process is lack of quality
in the legislative scrutiny. The presumed contributing factors for the problem are: time
related setbacks, lack of competence and commitment of MPs, hasty approval of bills
by means of motion, referral of backlogged bills at the end of the year, absence of
annual legislative plan, and limited public media role to the legislative process and so
on. These drawbacks can be classified as internal and external factors.

5.1.3 Another point of concern is the insufficient stakeholders’ participation in the policy
making process of the legislature. Procedurally, stakeholders have the right to
participate in public hearings concerned with bills and specially organized issues.
Today, the participation in these issues is not only weak but also in a diminishing
propensity. The people outside of the metropolis do not have access to participate in the
public hearings. There is no procedure that enables the public to participate in person
during the reporting of the executive departments. The public do not also have the say
on the performance evaluation of the executive departments.

5.1.4 The research has discovered that there are some signals of nonconformity of several
promulgated bills with the supreme laws and significant numbers of main laws are not
supported by subsidiary legislations. The basic point is that the legislature fails to have
controlling mechanisms to correct such anomalies. The nonconformity problem and
lack of timely supporting main laws by subsidiary legislations have the implication of
noncompliance with the rule of law by some institutions.

5.1.5 Though the final goal of different tiers of laws and policies is serving the general public,
unfortunately, it is discovered that they are hardly accessible to the beneficiaries. That
means, the people are being governed by the laws and policies which are not accessible
to them. Since they contain the rights and responsibilities of citizens, the problem
requires urgent solution.

71
5.1.6 Despite the improvements in budget scrutiny, still limitations are noticed in terms of
time allocation and quality level of scrutiny similar to the scrutiny of other bills. The
current blurred budget scrutiny process needs to be changed and must be attractive.

5.1.7 It is also discovered that the budget approval procedure of the constitutionally specified
public institutions has not been realized. The constitution stipulates that the HPR, the
HoF, the Federal Supreme Court, the OFAG and the Commission for Population and
Housing Census budget should directly be submitted to and approved by legislature.
Despite the stipulation of the constitution, the institutions have been required to submit
their budget proposal through MoFED by which they are discomforted.

5.1.8 The research revealed that the OFAG has been reporting annually many adverse
opinions, disclaimer opinions, over-budget spending, under budget spending and
violation of financial rules in spending budget and collecting revenues. However,
measures have never been taken on those public departments that frequently violate
financial laws though there have been some improvements in PAC activities in this
term. Another audit related finding is that the regional states do not use separate
accounts to the block grant and it is used in a mixed manner with their revenue and it is
difficult to make audit as well as prosecute to those who abuse public money by the
Federal EAC based on audit findings.

5.1.9 With regard to the oversight function, it has been disclosed by the research that the
feedback given by standing committees based on scrutiny of reports and field visits
have been only rhetorically accepted by most executive departments; in practice,
however, they do not take action on the feedback. Moreover, despite the improvement
of field trip activities in the fourth tenure of the legislature, still there is an extreme
scarcity of resources that impede the oversight function.

5.1.10 As far as the representation function of the legislature is concerned, the findings show
that there have been some progresses in the last two years, given its insufficiency. MPs
have visited their constituency every six months and they have got per diem and
accommodation allowance. Since the source of budget was DIP, its sustainability is
questionable. The second finding of the representation function is that the issues and

72
 problems raised by the electorate and collected by MPs have been reported every six
months to the leadership of the House but solution has not been obtained. Further,
though properly organized and analyzed opinions and demands of the electorate could
be an input for policy initiation and formulation to the government, there is no
systematic utilization of these reports.

5.1.11 Despite that the parliament and its standing committees hear the public petitions and
grievances arising from maladministration of the executive departments, it is not
common summoning and questioning of the executive officials who caused the petition
and the grievance. This procedure is established to reinforce good governance and to
solve problems of the public. However, it is not boldly being performed in that regard.

5.1.12 The internal debate that takes place among legislators is the main factor to the good
quality of parliamentary deliberations. In HPR, however, this kind of debate is known to
be passive and is not fully realized in the House because of misunderstanding and
wrong perception of party discipline. Most of the time MPs are abided by their party
discipline whether the issue is concerned with policy or not even if they have significant
reservations. Though it is obvious that there is no policy difference within a political
party, the debate of the House should not be blurred due to misinterpretation of party
discipline.

5.1.13 The other limitation that has affected the quality of the legislative and oversight process
is found to be the media. In spite of the fact that more than 90% work of the legislature
is done under the auspice of the committees, they do not obtain proper media coverage
and most of their work is hidden from the public though the issues discussed at the
committee level are imposing obligations and conferring rights to the citizens.
Moreover, when the reporters of ERTA make news on issues of standing committees’
meetings, the orientation of their reporting is on what the executive officials said
usually magnifying only their achievements, not what the standing committee
questioned, said, and suggested. Air time that has been established for a long time has
been cancelled for the reason that it was unattractive and it will be substituted by
another better program although the substituted program is not more than 15-20 minutes
a week. Besides, ERTA reporters and editors reflect bored attitude as to the

73
 parliamentary business reporting feeling that the media coverage is dominated by
parliamentary activities.

5.1.14 Even though gradual improvements have been observed, the House still has been
suffering from the deficiency of human and material resources. The buildings including
office rooms, meeting halls, the vehicles, office facilities, the expertise, remunerations
and allowances, benefits and privileges, the library, the IT etc. are not commensurate to
discharge the functions of the legislature. Along with the scarcity of resources of the
House, mismanagement of resources also highly aggravated the problem.

5.2. Recommendations

5.2.1. With regard to the general policies the researcher recommended that, according to the
constitution, they should be adopted by the legislature similar to the PASDEP and GTP
documents. Furthermore, the adoption of the general policies by the legislature can help
the MPs to understand their intent and to translate them in to detailed legislations. It can
also be valuable for oversight function of the legislature.

5.2.2. In line with the law making business of the legislature, it is suggested that due attention
should be given to the quality of law making process focusing on solving the internal
factors. The capability of MPs needs especial consideration particularly in the standing
committees. The attitudes of MPs must also be changed with regard to their role in the
legislature and the demotivating elements should be improved. Though the time allotted
to the scrutiny of bills is enough for the time being, however, in the future it requires
additional time to meet the average international standard. Nevertheless, the time
allotted to the scrutiny of the budget bill is considered as an insufficient and it requires
improvement currently. The submission of backlog bills at the end of the fiscal year and
passing laws by motion in the part of the executive necessitates proper communication
and common understanding on these issues. It is also important having disciplined
annual legislative plan.

74
5.2.3. To alleviate the drawbacks that manifested in the course of public participation, the
following measures need to be taken:
i. Capacitate the institutional capability of the secretariat to host stakeholders ;
ii. The MPs have to Convince themselves that the stakeholders’ participation is
critically needed;
iii. Make some amendment on the RPMCR related to the stakeholders participation
on the evaluation reports of the executive departments;
iv. The MPs and officials of the executive departments should accommodate
reasonably the opinions of stakeholders;
v. It is important to create awareness among the public as to the importance of
stakeholders’ participation.
5.2.4. To ease the problems of nonconformity of upper and lower laws and lack of supporting
main laws by subsidiary laws, the following measures are recommended:
a. It is very useful conducting separate and full research to understand the
magnitude of the of the problem to give comprehensive solution;
b. Bill initiating public departments must recruit senior lawyers who have wide-
ranging knowledge of laws especially in the domestic laws so as to avoid
inconsistency of laws. These types of professionals can also simultaneously help
to the timely adoption of subsidiary legislations.
c. The subsidiary draft bill should be prepared concurrently with the main draft
bill in order to avoid overlook and delay; and
d. The most important thing to the legislature is establishing controlling
mechanism within. Even though each standing committee has the responsibility
to control the consistency and presence of the subsidiary laws, there must be a
focal person that oversees that business in the legislature.
5.2.5. The possible remedies recommended by the researcher for the chronic inaccessibility
of laws and policies are listed as follow:
i. The parliament has to assign responsible and accountable body that follows up the
dissemination of laws and policies in a systematic way;
ii. It is important to repeal the monopoly right of the printing press on public laws;

75
 iii. Offer reasonable price for published proclamations and regulations that is affordable
to the general public;
iv. Give official order and control to the government departments to disseminate their
general policies, regulations and directives through publications, websites and other
means;
v. Using IT infrastructure in the parliament efficiently and effectively as an outlet of
passed laws by employing proficient human power and
vi. Creating synergy and coordination between the federal and state legislatures to
promote and to expand the outreach of passed laws in the state and local
administration levels.

5.2.6. For the improvement of the budget scrutiny process the following measures should be
taken:
a. The legislature should maximize the time already allocated by the RPMCR and
increase beyond it;
b. Make the involvement of all committees mandatory to scrutinize the budget of
the sectors that they oversee in support of the budget committee;
c. Special support of senior professionals that are qualified in economics and
accounting; and
d. Augment public involvement in the budget process in similar ways to other bills.

5.2.7.The Supreme Court, the OFAG, the HoF and the HPR have deliberately established by
the constitution for check and balance of the system and they need to be independent from
the executive’s influence in allocation of resources. The power to decide the budget of
these institutions is clearly identified by the constitution to be as a mandate of the HPR.
Therefore, the constitutional provision should be put in to practice by the legislature.

5.2.8. It is recommended that the offenders of financial laws either must justify about the audit
findings before the House or must resign from their post. Although the House cannot take
direct measure itself, it can ask the PM to take measures, if necessary. It is also important
empowering the PAC and the involvement of all committees similar to the budget
scrutiny. The problem which arises from mixed usage of federal and regional states’

76
 money can be solved by “single audit act” proposed by OFAG and sent to the legislature.
This act omits the duplication of audit and gives legal mandate to EAC to prosecute
abusers of federal funds.

5.2.9.It is advisable that the executive departments must be forced to give their justifications for
the noncompliance with the feedbacks of committees in similar way to the financial law
offenders. If they do not improve significantly, the PM must be informed and be
requested to take remedial measures by providing tangible evidences about their
drawbacks. Field visits should be planned based on the performance budgeting to be
rational during the negotiation with MoFED. Members of the advisory committee must
exert their maximum effort to convince the MoFED for allocation of reasonable budget to
the HPR.

5.2.10. Due to the current resource constraint and underdeveloped infrastructure of the nation,
the frequency of constituency visit is enough twice a year but for the future it should meet
the average international standard that extends from monthly to quarterly. The source of
budget also must be sustainable and should be from the treasury as the external grant is
terminated. The electorate’s opinions and demands must be justified and reasonably
solved. Policy initiators and formulators should pay due attention to the data collected
from the constituencies where the policies are practically tested.

5.2.11. Concerned with the follow up of the public petition and grievance, it is important that
the legislature and its standing committees have to improve the problem solving effect
of this function to enhance good governance and to obtain public credibility.

5.2.12. The possible remedies suggested by the researcher to the active participation of MPs in
the plenary session are:
a. The legislature has to discuss and approve to the general policies which are the bases
for any draft bill to be legislated by the House;
b. MPs must discuss, prior to the first reading, the draft bill itself to make clarity and to
reflect their differences on the issues of the draft bill;

77
 c. Even during the plenary session, MPs should have the right to oppose to the points
that they don’t want to be part of the Law. However, at the time of voting, they must
support their party position;
d. MPs have to differentiate policy and non-policy issues and forward objection and take
position on non-policy issues such as implementation issues, procedural issues, and
appointment and so on.

5.2.13. To alleviate the media coverage problems of the legislature, the following suggestions
are forwarded:
a. If ERTA does not offer free air time, the legislature must subscribe its own
dedicated air time to cover the legislative and oversight activities.
b. Capacitate the emerging parliamentary reporters’ group in the house and create
audio visual news and programs producing unit to redress the loopholes created
by ERTA editors;
c. Organize trainings to all reporters of the private and public media that can
enhance their awareness on ethics of journalism , parliamentary language and
norms;
d. Leading the public media board by the leadership of the House and reduce the
dominance of the executive in the management board.

5.2.14. As far as the, the resource problem of the House is concerned, the researcher urges the
need for consensus with the executive as to the extent and the importance the business of
the legislature. At the same time, the legislature should not be shy and have to claim its
reasonable share from the available resource of the nation competing with other priorities.
The maladministration of resources of the House also requires special consideration by
the secretariat.

78
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 Appendices

School of Graduate Studies,

Department of Public Management and Policy,
College of Management, Information and Economic Sciences, AAU

Semi structured questionnaire

This questionnaire is intended to collect primary data concerned with core policy making
functions of the FDRE’s Legislature. The topic of this research is “The role of the Legislature
in policy making process in Ethiopian”.

The purpose of this research is to identify the major problems of the policy making process of
the legislature and to suggest some solution measures and hence to contribute supportive role to
the better performance of the legislature in discharging of its responsibilities.

Therefore, dear respondent, you are kindly requested to read and complete all the questions
patiently and carefully. Your answer will only be used to academic purpose and handled
confidentially. So, please feel free. I thank you in advance for your diligence in filling my
questionnaire.

Atsbeha Aregawi, March, 2012

1. Do you think the bills that are under scrutiny by the legislature, including the budget bill,
are allotted enough time and discussed sufficiently?
a. Very sufficient b. Sufficient c. fairly sufficient d. Insufficient

If your answer is “d”, why it has happened?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

2. Do you think the enacted policies and laws are timely supported by appropriate regulations
and directives?
a. Yes b. Partially yes c. No d. don’t know

82
 If your answer is “b” or “c”, why are not?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

3. Do you think the enacted bills, regulations and directives conform to the government
policies and supreme laws?
a. Conform fully b. Conform Partially c. Do not conform
If your answer is “b” or “c” why do not conform fully?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

4. Do you think the policies and laws which are approved by the legislature are easily
accessible to the general public?
a. Sufficiently b. moderately c. poorly d. don’t know

If your answer is “c”, what do you think is the reason for poor distribution?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

5. To what extent the oversight function being undertaken by the legislature is performed
effectively?
a. Very good b. good c. moderate d. weak
If your answer is “c” or “d”, why?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

6. How do you weigh the degree of participation of stakeholders in the process of legislative
and oversight (policy making) process?
a. Very good b. Good c. Fairly good d. Weak

If your answer is “c” or “d”, would you explain why the participation was minimal?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

83
7. To what extent the opinions of stake holders’ are accommodated by the legislature during
the legislative and oversight (policy making) process?
a. Highly b. moderately c. slightly d. poorly

If your answer is “c” or “d”, would you explain the possible reasons?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

8. How do you evaluate the willingness of the executive departments in welcoming the
opinions of the legislature and its standing committees concerned with the draft bills, plans
and performance reports?
a. High b. Medium c. Low d. Don’t know

If your answer is “c”, what do you think is the cause?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

9. Have you ever observed any measure taken on the executive departments that do not
comply with the recommendations and remedies forwarded by the legislature?

a. Always b. Sometimes c. Never d. don’t know

If your answer is “b” or “c” what do you think the possible reasons?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

10. Do you think that the nonexistence of strong opposition party in the Ethiopian legislature
has negative impact in its Policy making process?

a. Yes b. partially yes c. No d. don’t know

If your answer is “a “or “b”, please explain the impact

84
 _________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

11. Have you ever encountered controversial issues to take position during the plenary session
such that: on the one hand being governed by the constitution, by the people and your
conscience, on the other hand being governed by your party discipline?
a. Yes b. Never
If you answer is “a”, how did you compromise them? Which of them did you give priority
to?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

12. Do you agree that standing committees are provided with professional support during
scrutiny of bills (including budget bill) as well as plans and performance reports of the
executive departments?

a. Strongly agree b. agree c. slightly agree d. disagree

If your answer is “c” or “d”, what was the solution to redress the gap?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
13. To what extent the legislature is provided logistical support (facility), as per the capacity of
the nation, to discharge its constitutional responsibilities?
a. Very high b. High c. Low d. Very low

If your answer is “c” or “d”, what do you think is the possible reason?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
14. In relative terms, which one of the legislature’s functions do you think is better done?
a. Legislation function c. Oversight function
b. representation function d. Entertaining public petition

85
15. With regard to the representation responsibilities, how far the functions of the legislature
are problem solving?
a. High b. Medium c. Low d. don’t know

If your answer is “c”, why?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
16. To what extent the representation reports are used as an input to the policy initiation and
formulation?
b. High b. Medium c. Low d. don’t know
If your answer is “c”, why?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

17. How far the mass media does plays supportive role in the legislative and oversight process
of the legislature?
a. High b. Medium c. Low
If your answer is “c”, please explain why?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

18. How do you generally evaluate the role of FDRE’s legislature with regard to its policy
making responsibilities.
a. Very important role c. Important role
a. Moderate role d. Insignificant role

If your answer is “c” or “d”, would you explain the possible reasons?

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

19. How do you gauge the general trend of the FDRE’s legislature in performing its
constitutional responsibilities during the 16 years tenure?

86
 b. Very good improvement b. good improvement
c. Moderate improvement d. poor improvement e. don’t know

If your answer is “c” or “d”, would you explain the possible reasons?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

20. Please list 3 problems that you think most important which are witnessed in the FDRE’s
legislature in their order of significance.
a.________________________________________________________________________
b.________________________________________________________________________
c.________________________________________________________________________
21. Personal information of the respondent:
A. Sex__________________________________________
B. Level of education________________________________________________
C. Your stay in the parliament and/or in the civil service:
• as MP for_______________________years
• as civil servant for_________________________years

Thank you very much!

March 2011

87
Interview/focus group guide

This interview/focus group guide is intended to collect primary data concerned with core
policy-making functions of the FDRE’s Legislature. The topic of this research is “The role
of the Legislature in policy making process in Ethiopian”.

The purpose of this research is to identify the major problems of the policy making process
of the legislature and to suggest some solution measures and hence to contribute supportive
role to the better performance of the legislature in discharging of its responsibilities.

Therefore, dear respondent, you are kindly requested to answer all the questions patiently
and carefully. Your answer will only be used for academic purpose and handled
confidentially. So, please feel free. I thank you in advance for your diligence in filling my
questionnaire.

Thank you very much! March 2011

1. Do you think the bills that are under scrutiny by the legislature, including the budget bill,
are allotted enough time and discussed sufficiently? why?
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2. Do you think the enacted policies and laws are timely supported by appropriate regulations
and directives? If your answer is no, why do you think it is happened?
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3. Do you think the enacted bills, regulations and directives conform to the government
policies and supreme laws?
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4. Do you think the policies and laws which are approved by the legislature are easily
accessible to the general public?

88
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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5. To what extent the oversight function being undertaken by the legislature is performed
effectively?
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6. How do you weigh the degree of participation of stakeholders in the process of legislative
and oversight (policy making) process?
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7. To what extent the opinions of stakeholders’ are accommodated by the legislature during
the legislative and oversight (policy making) process?
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8. Have you ever observed any measure taken on the executive departments that do not
comply with the recommendations and remedies forwarded by the legislature?
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9. With regard to the representation responsibilities, how far the functions of the legislature
are problem solving?
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10. To what extent the representation reports are used as an input to the policy initiation and
formulation?

89
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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11. Have you ever encountered controversial issues to take position during the plenary session
such that: on the one hand being governed by the constitution, by the people and your
conscience, on the other hand being governed by your party discipline? If you answer is
“Yes”, how did you compromise them? Which of them did you give priority to?
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12. To what extent the legislature is provided logistical support (facility), as per the capacity of
the nation, to discharge its constitutional responsibilities?
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13. How far the mass media plays supportive role in the legislative and oversight process of the
legislature? please explain why?
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14. How do you gauge the general trend of the FDRE’s legislature in performing its
constitutional responsibilities during the 16 years tenure?
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90
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1. ";<= >?.* +/4$ ">?$ =AB1 /)CB1/ 2, 'DE F23* 4G

H,I .+*2J= +K$L< M*2N O/PQE R6= '2<S?

2. "V-WXY +-Z' 4B1 "F[$ VWX\2 ]^_ `6a$ 7 c+_$ 2,

cOd$ VefY' O_OF_E?

3. ";< >?.* +/4$ g'h< i[Pj0h kl2 F2, mJN `O OnoE?

4. FpmqE +,)-$ 63Ei1 "YPr=, "F[$ IsK tn+,)-G

FY'H= +uJ$ >?$ OmJsE R6= '2<S?

5. ";<= >?.* +/4$ ;< ;< 1)w1 2,I, <x=?

6. ";<= >?.* +/4$ c+_h F[$ Fz{_ 6t/./2/4$ z*| 62,

VO\Il2?

91