Ghana’s Parliament weak – Muntaka

The Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, has bemoaned extreme partisanship in Ghana’s parliament, warning the country risks having a democracy that will be useless.

“Parliament is weak,” the Asawase MP said on Starr Chat.

According to him, for the country’s law-making chamber to meet international standard it is incumbent on legislators from both sides of the House to be nationalistic in their attitude.

Speaking on Starr Chat with Bola Ray, he said “we have a very huge responsibility as a country to be able to grow our democracy beyond elections” and for him there are two things that needed to be done to achieve that feat.

“If we don’t get those two things fixed our democracy will just be reduced to mere elections,” he warned.

The Asawase legislator in the Ashanti region further noted that he was not surprised when the Ghanaian parliament was ranked second to none in Africa by a research published in 2015 because “it is simply because…there is too much partisanship in parliament.”

“Too much partisanship. Almost everything we politicize it,” he stressed, clarifying that the antagonism, however, is no more.

He said the protectionism being exhibited in parliament is dangerous to the nation’s democracy and the situation has to change.

“If we don’t [change the current situation] we risk having a democracy that will be useless. Because believe me, all the issues that we are talking about that our institutions are weak, there is corruption, there is this, there is that – it is because parliament is weak,” he noted.