A Parliament is made up of a group of people who make or change the laws of a country, whilst parliamentary is used to describe things that are connected with a parliament.  The active players who are experts on parliamentary procedures, are known as Members of Parliament.

Ghana has a unicameral Legislature (one chamber) composed of 275 Members of Parliament (MPs) from single-member constituencies with an Executive President who appoints Ministers, majority of whom by the 1992 Constitution, have to come from Parliament.  The Constitution further provides that the Speaker shall preside in Parliament at all sittings and in his absence, a Deputy Speaker should be in-charge.  Another important positions in Ghana’s Parliament, are the Majority and Minority Leaders, who are supposed to initiate the Business of the House.

COMPOSITION OF GHANA’S PARLIAMENT

The current Speaker of Parliament is Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin with Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, as the Majority Leader and Haruna Iddrisu as the Minority Leader.  These are the most important personalities as far as the parliamentary procedures in Ghana are concerned.  They are the people who are supposed to champion the cause of law making in this country and are, therefore, highly revered.

The debate which is currently going on within the society is that, looking critically at the functions of our august Parliament, the question that arises then is; Are our Parliamentarians development agents in their constituencies or purely lawmakers?  This particular question, surfaces as a result of a comment purported to have been made by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, during his recent tour of the Central Gonja District of the Savannah Region.

PRESIDENT’S VERBAL ATTACK ON JOHN JINAPOR

During his interaction with the chiefs and people at Yepei in the Central Gonja District of the Savannah Region during his two-day official visit to the region, President Akufo-Addo, took the MP for the Yapei-Kusawgu, John Abu Jinapor, to the cleaners, accusing him of failing to connect 17 communities in his constituency to the national electricity grid. That was when the Paramount Chief of the Yapei Traditional Area, Yapeiwura Dr. A.B.T. Zakariah, made an appeal to him to extend electricity to the 17 communities in his traditional area.

Hear the President: “In my lifetime, the Yapei-Kusawgu Constituency has produced two members of parliament, Alhaji Amadu Seidu, who was a former colleague in parliament and John Jinapor, also known as ‘J J’, who was one-time Deputy Minister of Energy.  It is, therefore, surprising that about 17 communities in the constituency are still not connected to the national grid.”  He said the MP for the area, John Jinapor, had failed to bring the needed development to the constituency and urged the people to reconsider their voting pattern in the 2024 election by voting for the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He said the educational development under John Jinapor was wanting as “there is no Senior Technical High School in the whole of Kusawgu area”.

The President’s verbal attacks on John Jinapor, has indeed, heightened the debate as to whether MPs should concentrate on development projects in their respective jurisdictions alongside their lawmaking function.

DIVERGENT VIEWS OF MPS ON THE ISSUE

There have been divergent opinions from some of our MPs themselves on this relevant issue which needs to be interrogated in order not to make it a political issue or gimmick.

As far back as February 2018, during the first term of President Akufo-Addo, his Majority Leader in the then Parliament and MP for Suame in the Ashanti Region, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, stated emphatically that MPs were not agents of development.  According to him it was not the role of parliamentarians to fix roads, build health clinics, construct schools and expand other infrastructural development in their constituencies.  He said the President, Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies and sector Ministers, were the only mandated bodies to provide development projects across the country.

Explaining the roles of MPs at a public forum in Tamale during that time, he said MPs were not agents of development and advised voters to stop judging their MPs based on number of roads they fixed. He buttressed his argument with past experiences in the Northern Region in 2016, in which some MPs who had served at least two terms and had gained some level of experience, lost their mandate, largely due to an alleged non-performance in the area of infrastructural development.  Some of those MPs were also faced with stiffer competition and lost during their party’s internal elections, while others narrowly won to represent their parties.  The notable losers included Ibrahim Abubakari Dei, former MP for Salaga South, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, former MP for Nanton and the late Abubakari Sumani, former MP for Tamale North.

MAJORITY LEADER’S OPINION

The Majority Leader, therefore, affirmed the commitment of parliamentary leadership to counter that growing culture through literacy crusade to educate voters on how MPs operate.  Again in September 29, 2021, during an interview on an Accra-based Kingdom FM, the then Member of Parliament for Asante Akyem North, Lawyer Appiah Kubi, discounted the perception that lawmakers were development agents and described that as false.  He maintained that the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) were responsible for the development at the local level.  He asked MPs to desist from creating the perception in the minds of their constituents that they were development agents.

OKUDZETO ABLAKWA THINKS OTHERWISE

But, contrary to these opinions, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP for North Tongu in the Volta Region, has a different opinion, saying that MPs are agents for development not only lawmakers.  To him, while the primary job of parliamentarians is more of lawmaking, they must equally focus on developments in their respective constituencies.  “I think that if you want to be an effective MP, you have to be versatile.  Particularly, for a developing country like ours, you cannot say you will be an MP who focuses only on lawmaking.  So, you can have part of you that develops the ability to be an agent for development.  How to lobby for projects, how to pursue initiatives which will ease the burdens that your constituents have,” he said on Ghanaweb TV’s current affairs talk programme.

With some of these divergent views in vogue, some of the constituents still have the notion that it is the duty of their MPs to bring developments to their constituencies, hence the frequent confrontations and attacks on their MPs when they are not seeing these development projects. Just recently, some artisans at the Suame Magazine in the Ashanti Region attacked, pelted with sachet water and hooted at Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, MP for the area, as an expression of displeasure with the lawmaker over failed promises, especially the bad nature of their roads.

PRESIDENT’S REMARKS INAPPROPRIATE

It is unfortunate that the President knowing very well that MPs are not sole agents of development but rather to complement the work of MMDCEs as far as development projects are concerned, should blame the lawmaker, John Jinapor, for not bringing development project to his constituency.  In any case, the MP who belong to the minority side, will need financial backing from the government as he lobbies for projects for his constituency and also to prosecute that development agenda which the President spoke about when he addressed the people.

These empty promises during electioneering by most of our aspiring parliamentary candidates, can also be attributed to these frequent attacks and confrontations by the electorate.  In the event that, they have promised to deliver certain projects during their campaigns and cannot meet these expectations of the people who gave them their mandates, the controversies and attacks will surely emanate.  It is necessary for our politicians, especially prospective MPs to tone down some of these vain promises if they want to have their peace to continue with their work in parliament.

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By Charles Neequaye