7th Parliament has been the worst, will not be missed – Kwaku Azar

US-based Ghanaian Accounting Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, aka Kwaku Azar, has described the soon-to-be-dissolved 7th Parliament as the worst in Ghana’s history.

Taking to Facebook to assess the Legislature over the last four years, Prof Asare listed several decisions taken by Parliament to justify his assessment.

“On the legislative front, the 7th Parliament has given us the Imposition of Restrictions Act, which undermines the checks that the Constitution puts in place for declaring and maintaining a state of emergency.

“It also allowed the GLC to rush through the status quo maintaining LI 2235 on a dubious voice vote thereby sustaining an archaic monopolistic institution,” he wrote on his Facebook wall.

He adds that history will record the urgency with which the 7th Parliament approved “facially flawed contracts with minimal scrutiny. The locus classicus here are PDS and Agyapa.”

“The 7th Parliament has also had problems when it comes to leveling with the people on the benefits to its members. One cannot forgive the speed with which they diverted scarce police resources to themselves on the pretext that they lacked protection even though the reality was that they receive 20% of their salary as security allowance,” he said.

His verdict after listing the many problems with the 7th Parliament was thus: “The 7th Parliament has been one of the worst yet and I will not miss it.”

Read his full post on Facebook below.

On the legislative front, the 7th Parliament has given us the Imposition of Restrictions Act, which undermines the checks that the Constitution puts in place for declaring and maintaining a state of emergency.

It also allowed the GLC to rush through the status quo maintaining LI 2235 on a dubious voice vote thereby sustaining an archaic monopolistic institution.

On contract approval, history will record the urgency with which it approved facially flawed contracts with minimal scrutiny. The locus classicus here are PDS and Agyapa.

The 7th Parliament has also had problems when it comes to leveling with the people on the benefits to its members. One cannot forgive the speed with which they diverted scarce police resources to themselves on the pretext that they lacked protection even though the reality was that they receive 20% of their salary as security allowance.

Another complete failure has been its failure to protect the Auditor-General who reports directly to its members and in that respect can be described as a “legislative officer.” Historians will marvel at this wilful blindness and gleeful acquiescence.

It is then not surprising that in one of its very last actions prior to its dissolution, its Speaker set the dangerous precedent of vacating the seat of a duly elected member on nothing more than a letter written by a political party that the member has been dismissed from the party.

The chilling specter of the Speaker acting as a judge doing a purposive interpretation of the Constitution, which directs that such questions are to be determined by the high court, is a vivid caricature of a law-making body that does not follow the law.

The 7th Parliament has been one of the worst yet and I will not miss it.

Da Yie!