Comment: Do MPs deserve their gargantuan salary?

Members of Parliament (MPs) are currently paid GH?7,200 per month as salary.

This monthly salary is nearly five times the annual per capita income in Ghana.

It is also six times the annual average or median income in Ghana (Ghana Living Standards Survey 5).

Compare that to the United Kingdom, where the average monthly salary is £5,500, or about $8,300 a month, which is less than one-fourth of the annual per capita income in the UK. So comparatively, in accordance with the strength of their economies, Ghanaian MPs are paid 20 times better than their UK compatriots.

If MPs believe they must be paid 72 times what the average Ghanaian earns, before they can be reasonably comfortable, then clearly, as one part of the government in this country, they are admitting that the living conditions of people are indeed appalling.

And they should not tell us it is because they finance their own offices because we have not seen any research they have been producing for policies in this country.

We do not have a tradition of private member bills, and MPs never produce research on policy. As for constituents coming to them for money, that is part of the campaign strategies they have adopted in this country.

That is why they all have fund-raising teams for their politics. It is only a very naive person who will believe that they use their own income for that.

Did they use their salaries to campaign when they were aspiring to be elected?

MPs should be paid wages commensurate with senior professionals in the public service, which should in turn be tied to the national median income. Fifteen times the national median income may be acceptable, but 72 times is not.

In spite of this, MPs have on several occasions failed to deliver on their duties that reflect the national interest.

On several occasions, MPs on both sides have staged walkouts over issues that posterity later proves that they were wrong.

Value Added Tax and National Health Insurance bills can be cited.

As to Parliament’s inattention, recall the election petition. CI 74 was laid before Parliament to give effect to the rules for election disputes set out by the “Rules of Court Committee” with input from the Supreme Court.

However, the House failed to do its due diligence before allowing the CI to mature. The result was that right in the middle of the election petition, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, following a challenge by Bernard Mornah, that parts of the CI passed by Parliament were unconstitutional.

Instead of promoting patronage of locally made goods, Parliament imported furniture from China.

Now plans are far advanced to import furniture from Italy to furnish Job 600.

If they are promoting foreign goods, where do they expect Ghanaians to make money and pay their taxes, for that tax money to be used to pay their salaries?