Majority leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu has indicated Parliament may have to constitute some outgoing members into a group of consultants to help in the crafting of bills in the next Parliament.
According to him, the service of these MPs to the House, is invaluable and therefore their absence could affect the passage of bills, hence the need to somehow retain their expertise.
The Key legislators in law-making who will not be in the nest Parliament include the MP for Wa West Joseph Yieleh Chireh, MP for Tamale Central Alhaji Inusah Fuseini and MP for Offinso South Ben Abdallah Banda.
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu lamented the fact that these three key members will not be returning to Parliament in January and yet the House will require their invaluable services.
Parliament, he said, may have to sit down and programme how it can continue to make use of their expertise even after they exit.
“Perhaps we may have to constitute them into a group of consultants to assist this House with the passage of Bills”, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu suggested.
The Majority Leader made the suggestion during presentation of the business statement for the week when member for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, raised concerns about the inadequate numbers expected to deliberate some bills he stressed are very important.
The House, he said, may require the full complement of members to deal with those bills because of their important nature.
The Majority leader lamented the high attrition in Parliament, which he said is a result of the internal selection of political parties of their Parliamentary representatives.
According to him, this is why he has consistently called on the parties to do serious introspection because the current intra-party democratic engagement is not helping Parliament and the growth of the country’s democracy.
“Mr. Speaker that is where we are coming to… We must admit we are going down the slope as a House and arguably, the greatest function of every Parliament is legislation.
“If we don’t have members being present to participate in legislation, what does that Parliament exist for?”
“So we need to really talk to the political parties. What has happened yesterday has already happened but going into tomorrow both majority and minority have to conjoin and address this to the various parties in order to have serious introspection into how they work out their internal dynamics to select parliamentary candidates,” he stated.
He warned that what is happening currently is not the best, but a waste of effort and stressed that this does not happen anywhere in established democracies of the world.
Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu assured the South Dayi MP members who are interested in the bills would turn up to participate in their deliberation.
He argued that crafting of bills has consistently attracted only certain members and therefore it would be a waste of precious energy if the House is to postpone these bills with the excuse of inadequate numbers.
“I hope the honourable member has not forgotten his notes. He knows the regular people in this chamber who attend to the passage of bills.”
“I don’t know which other members you want us to force to join the process. We cannot force people to participate in the passage of bills. Those who are interested are those interested and they are here anytime we are crafting bills,” he said.
