Every MP started with zero experience, allow the youth - Kwesi Pratt

Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has called on political parties, particularly the New Patriotic Party (NPP), to stop pushing away the youth who decide to give party stalwarts a run for their money.

Mr. Pratt, speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme, bemoaned the attitude where some aspirants are refused the opportunity to contest elections on the ticket of their respective parties for reasons that they are not experienced.

He was commenting on the just-ended NPP Primaries that saw some sitting Members of Parliament lose their positions to new aspirants.

Forty (40) Incumbent NPP MP's at its just ended primaries, lost their seats, which according to the Majority Leader, Hon. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu is a setback as it impedes the effectiveness of work in the House.

The Majority Leader therefore believes that it’s about time the NPP institutes an in-built mechanism to protect experienced MPs, and hopes the situation would improve to help strengthen democratic dispensation.

But Mr Pratt disagreed, noting that the new aspirants and all persons of the eligible age to go to Parliament should be given equal right to contest elections without fear or favour, and dismissed the "lack of experience" tag being bandied about.

"What makes you think that the new candidates who won the primaries are inexperience? What are you talking about? Once they get into the house, they'll learn and eventually become experience too. They'll also chair parliamentary committees going forward. Those MPs who have now been voted out went there with no experience

"We should allow the youth to learn what we have learned, so they can replace us when we're no more...We are ageing, nobody grows younger ..and gradually we are heading to the grave. So we must allow these young men and women to come on board with fresh brains so that when we are no more, they'll steer the affairs....But if we will always say they don't have experience, where from the experience? If you don't give them the opportunity, how can the person gain experience? Someone has stayed in Parliament for 20 years....But when he/she began, he had zero years experience," he said.

He further asked; If we hadn't given the person an opportunity to stay there from 0 to 20, how would he or she have got experience?''