MP Pleads For More Pay

A member of Parliament has appealed to civil society and the media to prevail on the government to improve the conditions of service of parliamentarians.

"Unless such is done Parliament would fail to attract the right calibre of people into it, and a time will come when parliament will be full of quantity and not quality" Mr. Cletus Avoka said.

Avoka (NDC, Bawku West), contributing to a roundtable discussion on "Ten years of Constitutional Rule – Perspective from Parliaments", said MP’s remuneration needed urgent improvement because most of them "left our various professions where we were earning a lot" to become MPs. Sounding regretful, Mr. Avoka added: "We have moved from grace to grass".

According to Mr. Avoka, Ghanaians cannot expect parliamentarians to deliver more than the service they are providing now because they lack the facilities to help them do more. On his part, the MP for Hohoe South, Mr. Kosi Kedem, disclosed that only 40% of parliamentarians perform to the maximum and the creation of more constituencies is not the answer to the problem. Instead government should be interested in providing the facilities that MPs need to help them work to expectation.

He accused the leadership of the House of seeming to kill the initiative of members because the Majority Leader "worships two leaders at a go" and he is in the position to always please the executive. The immediate past Speaker of Parliament, Justice Daniel Annan, advised Ghanaians to treat the subject of amendments to the constitution with circumspection and tolerance. He called on members to refrain from any attempts at amendments in the absence of a broad consensus among the various stake holders, especially political parties, members of parliament, the Council of State and the three principal actors in the initiation and passage of bills.

Justice Annan said sharp partisan approach to debates sometimes tended to sacrifice issues of national interest on the altar of party politics and appealed for less partisanship and more national politics, driven by a strong commitment to national development. He urged all parties not to support any political strategy which has the potential of undermining party loyalty and the integrity of the multi-party system.