By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
In principle, I support the call by the Parliamentary Speaker, Edward Doe Adjaho, for the Chairman of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Kwaku Agyeman Manu, to be investigated for allegedly soliciting the sponsorship of a private Internet Technology (IT) firm, RLG, for some members of the House to undertake "an auditing study tour of the Gambia," whatever that is supposed to mean.
Needless to say, this is a patent violation of professional ethics and an open invitation to collaborative corruption between the government and the private sector (See "House Speaker Orders Investigations Into Conduct of PAC Chairman" MyJoyOnline.com 6/27/13). What is strange here, of course, is the fact that the Speaker would sneakily wait for the Public Accounts Committee Chairman to travel outside the country before publicly serving the House his notice concerning an official inquiry. This clearly smacks of Mr. Adjaho's having a personal, perhaps even a vindictive, agenda against the person, rather than the professional and/or legislative conduct, of Mr. Kwaku Agyeman Manu, who is also the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Dormaa-West.
But I also strongly disagree with Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, the NPP-MP for Asante Old Tafo, that the Speaker's reliance on a newspaper publication as the inspirational source for his call for the investigation of Mr. Agyeman Manu's conduct as PAC Chairman "sets a bad precedent." Dr. Akoto Osei's condescending attitude towards the Ghanaian media is precisely what is wrong with the Ghanaian politician and parliamentarian. It goes without saying that the media is about the only credible means by which the overwhelming majority of responsible and law-abiding citizens learn about what goes on in our National Assembly, particularly vis-a-vis the way and manner in which our publicly-sponsored representatives conduct business on behalf of the constituents and electors on a daily basis.
In other words, MPs like Dr. Akoto Osei have absolutely no moral justification, whatsoever, to feel superior to our media watchdogs, the very people who alert the ordinary citizen as to how their interests are being served on both the national and global levels.
Paradoxically, though, I also agree with the Old Tafo NPP-MP that Mr. Adjaho may well be engaging in a selective application of protocol. In brief, if, as Dr. Akoto Osei claims, several unflattering newspaper reports about conduct unbecoming of honorable members of the House have been routinely ignored by the Speaker, then it is about time that Mr. Adjaho back-tracked, or retroactively reviewed those other questionable cases, if his own credibility as Speaker of the House is to be positively envisaged.
On the whole, I don't see any fundamental differences between the conduct of MPs of the two major political parties. And so what is clearly needed here is for all members of the House to periodically undergo professional ethics training in order to help them conduct the people's business with the highest level of patriotism.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
July 4, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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