The uncontested Talensi Communication Officer of the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in their upcoming party internal election Michael Nangena has said, if not for the intervention of NDC MPs fight against the deadly COVID-19 would have been a disaster.
Mr. Nangena was responding to a topic for discussion which was presented on Apexnews Ghana’s flagship programme on Friday, October 7, 2022, dubbed: “SPEAK OUT UPPER EAST”. The question presented to panels is, “What is your general overview with regard to our representatives from this part of the country as Parliamentary Caucus? Do you think they represent the region well development-wise?
Meanwhile, responding to the question, Mr. Ayine said: “We cannot discuss the role of our MPs without if we are not able to situate ourselves in what the constitution of Ghana enjoys every Member of Parliament to do and our MPs can never be an exception”.
“When we come to the role of the MP, according to the 1992 constitution, the MP has a legislative function, apart from the legislative function there is another one we call the financial function, representative function, and oversight function and they also have what we call a deliberative role and what I would add which I described as incidental to this function is what we call they their social responsibility of trying to take some minor developmental projects like paying school fees, roofing schools, etc.
“In the issue of the legislative function, what it means is that MP is elected to represent the people of his constituency in the law-making processes. The question we will be asking is whether the MPs from this part of the region are left out or not. Do they all participate in the law-making process of the country? And that answer is no. They are actively involved”.
“I am not a lawyer, but if you ask most of the constitutional lawyers and in fact, lawyers of Parliamentary democracy and they will all tell you that the Parliament of Ghana will be incomplete without input especially from the Northern MPs and in particular the MPs from the Upper East Region and most of served in the select committee of legal and constitutional affairs. Beyond this, we have issues of financial responsibility. As MPs, they are supposed to really sanction the executive to spend on our budget and they do all these things”.
“Representation, we don’t run direct democracy, we run indirect democracy and by that, it means the people of Upper East, all of us cannot converge in Parliament to take part in decision-making”.
“So, you can only judge our MP in this respect by his or her attendance to the house, and in fact, there have been Civil Society Organizations that have come out with polls making the attendance of MPs, and am too sure anytime the list is out, our MPs are not victims”.
“During the COVID time, remember Upper East was mentioned as a hotspot because we have a high incidence of COVID-19 in the region. Look, the basic PPEs the nurses needed to use to fight the pandemic were largely procured by NDC MPs and I was directly involved in the distribution of these PPEs that were also procured by my MP and am yet to be told of a single MP in the Upper East Region who never rose to the occasion”. He ended.
Source: Apexnewsgh.com|Ghana
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