House Stands Ground on Standing Committee Chairpersonship

Parliament elected eight MPs to chair standing committees during its Friday, November 9, 2018, session. While rejecting the nomination of two, the legislative body elected women to head half of the eight standing committees.

Moutuma Meqassa, former Minister of Defense, and Atsibeha Aregawi, nominated to chair the Foreign Relations & Peace Affairs and the Revenues, Budgeting & Finance Affairs standing committees, respectively, were rejected by parliament.

"The stand showed the importance of the parliament’s position in democratisation and reform processes, "Misrak Mekonen (PhD), head of the Parliament Office, told Fortune.

The case was similar to parliament’s deliberation on the organisation of the standing committees on November 6. After a two-hour long debate, parliament elected near unanimously to downsize the number of standing committees by half from 20 but disagreed on the nomination of Motuma and Amanuel Abraham, the deputy government whip. It also put off proposals to raise chairmanship of the committees to ministerial ranks for another session.

“Our main focus was not in what rank the chairs could serve, but whether they would be able lead the respective committees to effectively oversee the executive organs of the government," said MP Ashenafi Gaime, who was elected to lead the Urban Development, Construction & Transport Affairs Standing Committee, told Fortune.

Amanuel was also nominated and rejected to chair the Legal, Justice & Democracy Affairs Standing Committees. Instead, Fozia Amin was nominated and elected to the position with a majority vote. The remaining nominees were approved with unanimous votes.