Features
Are our parliamentarians devt agents or lawmakers?
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
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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