Power locks conscience of politicians in Africa – Bright Simons laments

The Vice President of Policy Think Tank, IMANI Africa Bright Simons, says in Africa, supporters of the ruling governments lock their conscience.

According to him, this prevents them from seeing any evil with regards to policies and programmes introduced by their governments.

This worrying feature about politics in Africa Bright Simons dislikes especially Members of Parliament who can fight bad policies and programmes from taking a stance and calling their government out for some sick policies.

Bright Simons made this known in a thread on Twitter.

He said “It has become clear for a while now that the sacrifice you make as a member of a ruling party in Africa is to lock your conscience. It becomes impossible to see bad policies from your govt. That also means you become irrelevant. All eyes are now on the Opposition to save Ghana”.

Adding that “The biggest challenges with the Budget for CSOs I know: A. Agyapa is unconscionable.

B. Parliament did NOT grant approval to GNPC to buy the Aker blocks. C. E-Levy is not a simple tax policy. It will affect everything. So it needs its own separate policy with stakeholder input”.

He indicated that “But you would be naïve if you expect even one MP from the ruling party to take a stance on any of these seriously problematic matters. Not one of them will have the moral courage to scrutinise a single thing their Govt does. A true tragedy”.

However, he was thankful to God that there is an opposition political party to hold the government to account saying “Thank God then for the Opposition”.