Of Members of Parliament Living in Penury...

Recently we were all outraged to hear some former and present Members of Parliament demanding some 20+ million cedis as some arrears they are entitled to. On Wednesday (May 27, 2020), Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu (Hon) was on PM Express on Joy News and most of the discussion centered around how Members of Parliament live in poverty and how their salaries and exgratia isn't enough for them due to certain pressures.

I've also come to learn from people who have worked closely with MPs that most of them who come to parliament from poor backgrounds are really struggling financially and are hugely indebted. What happens is that, as soon as the person becomes a parliamentarian, his/her lifestyle changes to suit his/her new position. They take their kids to bigger/better schools, they rent better houses, they start acquiring properties, they have to be seen to be doing development projects so they embark on such projects, they must pay fees, hospital bills, funeral contribution etc of their constituents among others... So if someone was a teacher for example and he gets into parliament, already he has very negligible savings so there's no way they can meet all these financial demands from the pockets, the salaries they get from parliament will definitely not be enough. Don't forget that campaigns are very expressive these days and some even take loans to finance their campaigns. These day if you don't grease people's palms, you won't make it through primaries talk less of the main elections and that's because the impression has been created as if going there will automatically grant you wealth.

‘Na Who Cause Am?’
The poverty of MPs is a reflection of the poverty of all of us teachers, nurses, doctors, farmers, lawyers etc. When you are broke, you should be honest with yourself and spend within your means. Nobody in Ghana is getting enough, we're all living within our means but are MPs living within their means? If we pay MPs a million cedi each month, their expenses will go up again and they'll still cry for more. No amount is enough but rather we should create systems that makes MPs enjoy the little they have. Anytime I hear an interview with an aspiring MP, they promise heaven on earth. They promise to fix roads, build toilet facilities, schools etc and indeed when sitting MPs come to boast of their achievements, those are some of the things they point fingers to. But do we vote for MPs to fix roads or build toilets? An MPs achievement should be about how many bills they've introduced in parliament, what bills they've voted voted for or against, how those bills have shaped our democracy and improved lives of the citizenry, how they've been able to mobilize and empower their citizens to cause social change and so on. If an MP should have anything to do with development projects, it should be that, he/she works together with the local assembly to lobby with both private and public agencies to bring such development projects to their constituents or that MP genuinely has his own resources to provide such things but they shouldn't be the measure of their competence. It should not be that the success or failures of MPs will be measured by development projects or how generous they are. This guage rod is the reason why we have some funny, confused, uninformed and unlettered elements parading themselves as MPs and sometimes when they speak, you feel like crying. We all know them. That gauge rod has caused us to lose some good MPs, like George Loh. Parliament should be a serious business for people who have credibility and have made some significant social impact in their communities so they can use the bigger parliamentary platform to continue to influence change.

Again the Parliament of Ghana is not independent. Yesterday the EC fixed a date for the new voters' register while there's a Constitutional Instrument (CI) before parliament waiting to mature. In a serious democracy, the chances of the CI being passed will be a 50/50 affair. But because they know the MPs are just there to pass whatever the executive wants, they have no shred of doubt that the CI will mature. In fact but for the CI, parliament won't be sitting given the health risk involving the spread of Covid19 but because our MPs are there to do the bidding of the executive, they are sitting while some members are catching the virus. Parliament has become a rubber stamp for the executive because many MPs are appointed to serve as ministers by the executive. If you're in parliament and still play the role of the executive, you make people see you as an agent of development and will demand development projects from you.

What do we do?
1. We must make MPs, MPs and Mps only and not add on ministerial duties to them as ministers. This will ensure that they're seen in the eyes of the public as lawmakers, nothing less, nothing more. Nobody will demand projects from a lawmaker.

2. We must reduce the salaries of MPs and take off their share of the common fund. Politics is service to the nation, the people we put there to serve us should not be seen to be enriching themselves to the expense of the poor. I know democracy is expensive but the word expensive is relative to what our country can afford. If teachers, nurses, policemen, doctors cannot afford the basic things in life because the country is often broke, why should those who are supposed to make that possible for them be able to? If MPs are paid a basic of GH2,500 per month and they don't like, they shouldn't go to parliament. It's not by force. Nobody sent anyone there...

3. MPs should learn to live within their means when they're in office so they can save enough to cater for them when they get out of parliament. The MPship job is not a lifelong job so you don't expect us (the taxpayers) to be taking care of you long after you left parliament when your exgratia alone is more than what others who served this country for decades can ever make. We all learn how to be greedy from your actions. If I am in the civil service for 10 years and I can't afford a house or a car and you are in parliament for only four years and life is good for you, I'll be tempted to steal so life will be good for me too.

4. MPs should stop promising what they know they can't do. We must also learn to identify potential leaders and put them in parliament. We want the likes of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in our parliament too.

Finally, MPs should stop worrying us about how poor they are. Police Officers with their wives and kids are living in single rooms with their fridges and buckets outside. They also deserve better. MPs should stop licking the boots of the executive. Parliament is a powerful body, they should take the executive to task so they'll put the necessary measures in place to ensure that all of us have access to affordable housing, quality education, quality healthcare systems, efficient transport systems, affordable utility services, proper social security and financial systems, efficient security services and jobs so instead of haven to demand more money from us to enjoy these basic stuffs, we can all enjoy them together.

By K. M. Abdul-Hamid
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