Monetization cause of low quality of persons in Parliament – Former NPP MP

Former Gomoa West Constituency MP in the Central Region on the ticket of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alexander Kodwo Kum Abban has blamed the reduction in the quality of Members of Parliament elected in the house every four years on the monetization in politics.

Responding to a question at a roundtable discussion organized by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) on the theme: ‘Navigating the Unique Composition of the 8th Parliament’ on June 2, 2022, in Accra, he explained that year in and year out, the quality of people who get elected to parliament reduces.

Comparing the 7th Parliament with the 6th, and 5th, he blamed the monetization of Ghana’s party politics as the cause of reducing the quality of people who form the legislature.

“…it is the quality of people we have been voting to Parliament over the years and it appears to me, year in and year out, the quality of people who get to Parliament reduces.

It is not to say we don’t have very fine brains in the 8th Parliament but in comparison to the 7th and probably from the 7th to the 6th and to the 5th,” he said.

He noted that “When we go out there to campaign, it is not about the quality of what you stand for, it is how much money you can give out.”

Other speakers were Prof. H. Prempeh (Executive Director, CDD-Ghana), Maame Awinador-Kanyirige (International Trade Consultant & Global Politics Enthusiast), and Hon. Inusah Fuseini (Former NDC MP for Tamale Central).

In his contribution, Prof. H. Prempeh Executive Director of CDD-Ghana advised that “we model a different kind of relationship between the Executive and the Legislature in order to avoid one party taking all after winning power.”

He explained that the country can come to a halt in the future if there is a hung Parliament where one party is in complete control of Parliament and the other party is in total control of the Executive just as happened in Tunisia.

“If we don’t model a different kind of relationship between the Executive and the Legislature, even in normal times…I think it is clear that this kind of one-party rule is certainly not the best model policy for us going forward,” he noted.

For his part, former Tamale Central MP, Inusah Fuseini, on the contrary, expressed satisfaction with the 8th Parliament. He said his expectation to some extent has been met.

At the end of the roundtable discussion, the speakers concluded that in order to have an effective discharge of duties by political leaders to benefit all, there is the need to implore national consensus in policy direction and minimize the monetization in the country’s politics.