News:
August 3, 2020
First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu has lamented over the practice where the two major political parties in the country, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have done nothing to protect good lawmakers in the legislature.
According to him there should have been steps taken by the parties to protect the good materials and further added that as it stands now none of the political parties can say they would ensure that farmers and accountants or professionals of high quality would be maintained in the House.
The First Deputy Speaker lamented over how Parliament is not prepared in terms of resources and lawmakers in respect to the kind of thing there are envisaged to do. “In my view the answers to these questions are beyond Parliament’s control as to lawmakers who come in political parties”.
Again he questioned, where in the world do we have lawmakers subjecting themselves every four years to elections?
“I led a delegation of my Committee, the Privileges Committee to the House of Commons and we had the opportunity to interact with their whips and leadership of both side of the House. They were surprised to learn that indeed no matter how well you perform every four years you have to go back to the polls”.
The Bekwai lawmaker noted that in the United Kingdom, their system does not work like that, once you are elected you would be the candidate of the party unless you loss the main elections.
He made this remarks at an engagement with leadership of the Standing and Select Committees of Parliament organised by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.
“A good MP is not the one who does his work well in the House. The last primaries show clearly people who were truly committed to their work in Parliament lost their primaries. That is not what interest the public, we should have a second look at what represent our interest as a people”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com