‘Ghanaians have become so corrupt we can’t think about agreement without corruption’ – Joe Wise

First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, has rejected corruption allegations peddled against Members of Parliament especially in the light of the equal number of seats between the two major parties in the house.

The Bekwai MP stressed that lawmakers were strictly doing their work in the interest of the citizenry without any undue financial dealings.

“How can negotiations involve the greasing of palms?” he rhetorically asked a Joy News journalist during an interview aired on Sunday evening, May 2, 2021. “Ghanaians have become so corrupt we can’t think about agreement without corruption,” he added.

“But it is a reflection of our times, unfortunately. We have become too corrupt as a nation that nobody accepts that you can do something genuinely without thinking about your palms being greased or that you are being promised something,” he stressed.

He said when it comes to Parliament, their negotiations as caucuses in the house still had the national interest in sight because none of their decisions is in principle against the country’s interest.

“Governance at any point in time involves opportunity costs because you don’t have sufficient resources to cover everything,” he submitted.

The interview spanned different areas of parliamentary business since the events of January 7 – 8 when MPs engaged in violent exchanges during the election of current speaker Alban Bagbin.

He described the events as very unfortunate and also insisted that Bagbin was a consensus candidate because it was clear that the process of open election of a new speaker was no longer feasible.