News:
December 12, 2017
Member of Parliament (MP) for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh has attributed absence of most MPs on the floor of the House during consideration stage of Bills to lack of orientation on their core duties when new MPs come to the House.
He noted that, rather new MPs are looking at committees they can serve on, “this is one of the problems we face,much time is not allotted or dedicated to address MPs on their primary duty”.
He said their core duty is law making, but at the start of every new Parliament MPs are looking for juicy committees to serve on.
Mr Yieleh Chireh who was speaking in an interview said he has spoken to the management of Parliament several times to no avail for MPs to go through the law making process.
Investigations and checks done by ghanamps.com can reveal that during consideration stage of Bills, only about 10 percent of MPs are found on the floor of the House, and the Wa West legislator is among the few MPs who stay on the floor during this time.
Again, “MPs cannot just walk out just like that when it gets to consideration stages of Bills, in fact in the case of recent Bills passed, Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Development Authority Bills it happened”.
According to the Wa West lawmaker, the Majority Whips ensure their members were around and further called for rules to be strengthened to ensure MPs perform their primary duties.
He further added, MPs should ensure that they work hard for Ghanaians to know they “craft” good laws and lamented over the conduct of some Ministers in the seventh Parliament who bring Bills but do not stay in the House.
Again an “MP can propose amendment to a Bill which can change the policy implication, that is why we need the Ministers in the House”, and commended Attorney General, Gloria Akufo for always being around and consulting on the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill.
However he was quick to add that some MPs on the Minority side who are not lawyers have started showing interest in the crafting of Bills from the beginning to the end.
“I feel ashamed when they say this law was badly drafted and passed by MPs and people insult us for allowing some laws to pass, we should make new members interested in the law making process”, he said.
He further said, you do not need to be a lawyer to take part in the law making process, we have different people with different background,“for instance if you are making law for the internet, those in that industry use some term that others might think their grammar is not good but that is the language use in their industry”.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com