In life the situations one goes through and their attendant consequences are not as important as the lessons learnt from them. There is an Akan proverb which loosely translates that ?it is better to make a new mistake than to repeat an old one?. Our forefathers admit that as humans, we are bound to make some mistakes in life, some inadvertently and others avoidable though. It is this realism of life that enforces the fallibility of man. But nature is also kind enough to give us the presence of mind to appreciate our mistakes either by ourselves or as pointed out to us by our loved ones.
The current political and governance dispensation, like many of such all over the world, requires an oversight responsibility by Parliament, which is the people?s representation over the Executive arm of government. Recent occurrences in the way this country is being governed show a clear failure of Parliament in its major responsibility towards the people of this country. Parliament, admittedly, is also not in existence to make it impossible for government to deliver on its manifesto to improve the lives of the citizenry. Indeed, the Majority side in Parliament has a responsibility of ensuring that its government succeeds by way of delivering on its promise.
The Minority, on the other hand, is not enjoined to ensure that the government fails; it has the primary duty to put government decisions under microscopic scrutiny not with the aim of making the government look bad but to protect the general interest of the citizenry. Since the Minority is supposed to be a government in waiting, it is not expected to get itself embroiled in needless government actions which have the potential to court public anger and disaffection towards the party in opposition.
The government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has a nice way of drawing the opposition NPP into some of its detestable actions tainted with criminal motives, which go against the general interest of the people of this country. In 1998, when the Rawlings administration purchased the Gulfstream plane under very dubious circumstances, the NDC found a way of dragging the Minority NPP into the matter in a very subtle way in order to diminish the position of the NPP when it came onto the floor of Parliament for discussion.
The then government had gone to purchase the plane before coming to Parliament for approval. On the day of purchase, the plane changed ownership four times before Ghana purchased it. Strangely, the then Minister of Finance, Mr Kwame Peprah, who led Ghana?s delegation for the transaction, was also a director of the offshore Cayman Island Company?the company which was selling the aircraft to Ghana.
Before the matter came to the floor of the House, a number of Members of Parliament from all sides had variously been offered ?rides? in the aircraft. When the plane landed at Kotoka, a GTV camera was put on Hon Nana Yaw Barima, an NPP MP for Koforidua, and his impression of the aircraft was sought. His response was recommendatory of the aircraft; so when the debate began in the House, the NDC used that footage against the NPP on the matter.
In 2009, when the controversial STX project took centre stage in political discussions in this country, the NDC again took some Members of Parliament to wherever STX was located or was deemed to have performed excellently, in order that the MPs would, as it were, see for themselves the good things the government was bringing into the country. Again, the cameras did the bidding of the NDC in capturing the comments of the Minority MPs on the deal. Once again, when the matter came up for public discussions, the footages of the NPP members who were part of the delegation were used by the NDC against the position the party took on the STX agreement and its failures.
Now, at a time when the Mahama administration has no shred of credibility left, when public trust and confidence in the government is not worth the price of the carcass of a goat, a period when the President has lost all the confidence in himself to look straight into the eyes of Ghanaians to tell them I am your President, the least the NPP Minority in Parliament can do is to ensure that they do not allow themselves to be robed in the conspiratorial criminality of the NDC government.
Everybody knows the criminal nature of the people in government today, particularly in the area of procurement. Why will the party in waiting smear itself with the rotten talcum of a stinking and sinking government by aiding it in one of the most scandalous procurement processes of this regime? Why? Undoubtedly, one of the most respected Members of Parliament today is Honourable Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu. In all deference, his argument in support of the shadowy procurement which has made a mockery of and concretised the criminal intents in most procurements in this country by the Mahama administration, is at best self-defeating of the role of the Minority in Parliament.
My Honourable?s rhetorical question to Ghanaians, as to whether MPs should sit on plastic chairs, is also very unfortunate. At no point in time in the history of this country have our Members of Parliament sat on plastic chairs to work for the nation; and I believe there will never be a point when Parliamentarians will have to sit on plastic chairs. This does not also mean the people of this country cannot demand value for money in whatever we do to make the work of Parliament reasonably comfortable.
Yes, Parliament may be a Procurement Agent by law, but does it require the physical presence of Parliamentarians to get procurement effected? If the Minority itself is involved in a procurement that goes awry, who will hold the procurement agent accountable? Again, the argument in defence of the procurement of the furniture from China is not convincing. Did Parliament wake up one day to notice that there was the need to re-configure the chamber of the House? Obviously no. Therefore, it will still have been better for those wood works to have been given to Ghanaians in advance in order for them to meet the timelines.
We live in a country where unemployment has become a major issue, companies are closing down or downsizing, there is hopelessness among young artisans of all categories of trade, yet we find it excusable to spend precious monies of the taxpayer on foreigners to the detriment of our people.
If our Minority Members of Parliament do not know, I want to tell them that public confidence in Parliament as a whole is at its lowest ebb. Ghanaians are patient and accommodating because they believe that they can use their thumbs to bring a change in government, which will ensure a better life for them in future. That hope is built in the Minority in Parliament; and if that hope is eroded by acts of omission and commission on the part of the Minority, then doom awaits this nation.
When I was a child, I watched a movie titled ?55 Days In Peking (Beijing)? starred by Charlton Hestton. It was an American movie. I do not know the number of days our MPs spent shopping for furniture in China. Maybe ?A Fortnight in China in Search of Furniture? will be a nice title for a movie in that regard. The story line will be a situation where the Speaker of Parliament asks the Minority Leader to send a team of MPs from all sides to comb the whole of China for furniture for the Chamber within a stated time, and that should they fail, they would lose their seats in Parliament.
They work tirelessly to meet the deadline, come home with beautiful shinny set of chairs and when the Speaker sits on one of them to test its durability, the chair breaks and the Speaker falls flat on his back. The taxpayers become angry at the MPs-turned-purchasing-clerks and chased them out of Parliament, whilst the Speaker resigns his position.
By Kwesi Biney
