News:
March 16, 2024
Majority Leader, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin is strongly advocating for enactment of law to take care of the welfare of lawmakers as it exist in other arms of government.
Mr. Afenyo MArkin, responding to a statement on the floor of the House bemoaned the sorry nature of their former colleagues who left office because they do not have any support.
According to him the job is full of depression as they go through a lot and are often left on their own. He thus admonished that they should not wait for someone to die and then come to the floor of the House to make beautiful statements which amounts to nothing.
He further backed his point by saying in the constitution of the Republic of Ghana it is only the President and the Vice President who seem to be recognized upon retirement. “So, I call on my colleagues as we go on recess ,we should have a proper thinking of this matter now that we have, ways and means committee, that committee must have that responsibility of enacting a proposal which would look at this things critically; that is our welfare for same to be debated and we must resolve and make it mandatory for the state to take care of us. It cannot be that you come into public service, you leave and an MP is seen in public and wearing sleepers”.
Again, people say we are corrupt meanwhile you do not have anything, your salary is next to nothing.
“I was better off in private practice; many people in this chamber who are professional are suffering, they were better off in private practice, but they are serving the nation. We should get the narrative right, we should get the people to know that this is our right, so that it would not be that if you are asking for it, it’s at the expense of the state, or it is too much, why are you asking for it?”
He also blamed the kind of politics they churn out as partly responsible for their predicaments and called for change, otherwise they give the Ghanaian the impression that, every MP is corrupt then, so “when you are asking for medical support they would say you have already stolen from the state, that is where we have a problem even our gratuity we have a problem defending it”.
Again, you have your constituents coming to you for, school fees and funeral donations that are more that your salary. Festival support to chiefs, electricity and water bill, in the case of some constituents their wives have given birth and in the hospital you have to pay.
HE cited the case of a colleague former Central Regional Minister under Kufuor, Edumazi who has to solicit support from his colleagues at the car park; a man the media projected as very rich while in office.
“We have so many colleagues in the same situation; this House should take this thing up. I call on leadership of the House to initiate it now because the statement would not go just like that.
We should enact a law for the welfare of the House, let us nominate five from each side of the House as a committee to investigate the welfare issue, enact a law and let it be part of the conditions of service of this house; enough is enough, he stated.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com