Majority Leader Dissatisfied With Quality of NPP MPs

Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has bemoaned the quality of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House in recent times, including those of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

"What we have in parliament as MPs I must admit we suffer some weakness today" in response to a question about the quality of MPs on his side.

Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, MP for Suame explained that some of the experienced MPs have taken up ministerial appointments and hardly have time to contribute to parliamentary business, even though they are encouraged not to relinquish their parliamentary duties.

"Many of us who came into parliament have been taken out and made ministers and deputy ministers who don't usually have time to come and participate in the business on the floor of the house.

"We keep telling them that they should manage their time such that they should be able to have time to come to parliament to participate in the business and later go to their office to work, many of them it's difficult.

"What has contributed to the dwindling quality of MPs is that they are not allowed enough time in parliament to gather relevant experiences unlike the United States of America where the average tenure of a member of the senate is 24 years.

"The situation is not the same in Ghana where after some time in parliament you find people coming and banging doors, saying this man has been there for two terms, he has been there for three terms but is that his father's property?"

"That should not be the case because parliament is like wine, the older the better," Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu insisted, suggesting older MPs are of a better quality.

This is not the first time the Majority Leader has raised concerns about the quality of MPs in parliament, his recent comments are a reiteration of similar concerns he had raised in the past about the quality of debates in parliament.

He had described them as poor and eluded the situation to the kind of people who were voted as MPs.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu pointed out that it is about time Ghanaians paid a little more attention to the quality of the people who are voted into parliament and lamented that the political space had been monetised.

"I honestly think that as a country we should be looking at the quality of people that are coming to parliament, increasingly, if we must admit I think money is too much taking centre stage in our politics," he alluded. -3news.com

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