MPs' code of conduct a “toothless bulldog” without sanctions – Fuseini

Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Inusah Fuseini has said the code of conduct for the nation’s lawmakers is good in its current form but ambiguous.

“It’s good, I always say that if you want to know that law and order is good for a society, what you need to do is to watch the traffic lights when they go off, and everybody is minding his own business and you see chaos at its best.

“Unregulated conduct in the Parliament can be chaotic, regulated you find order and discipline, that is why I support it,” Fuseini said.

Parliament Monday passed a code of conduct to regulate the activities of MPs, within and outside the chamber.

But the Roads and Highways Minister fears that the code will not serve the intended purpose due to the absence of accompanying sanctions.

“The most important criticism I have about the conduct is that it is founded on law, people will not just act because they feel like acting, people act in a certain way sometimes because of fear of sanctions and sometimes where there are no sanctions, then it becomes a toothless bulldog and people can act with impunity and they would never be punished.

“So if we have a code then that code must also have a sanctions regime and we don’t leave those sanctions to a committee to investigate and recommend”.

The parliamentary ad-hoc committee on the code of conduct for MPs has defended its work despite the criticism.

Committee member Papa Owusu Ankomah said members of the Law House would decide the type of sanction to mete out to MPs when they flout the code of conduct.