The Majority Leader in Parliament and MP for Suame, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has described the majority of the polling station executives of the ruling New Patriotic Party as useless to the political fortune of the party when it comes to mobilization at the grassroots level.
According to the lawmaker who has been expressing concern about the voting out of experienced legislators saying it impedes effective parliamentary works, the NPP must retake a look at its delegates system as it doesn’t bode well for the party going forward.
The just-ended NPP parliamentary primaries saw 40 incumbent MPs lose their seats, including some who chaired the various parliamentary committees. Many more would have lost had they not gone unopposed.
Speaking on Oman FM via phone, Kyei Mensah Bonsu said: “only 5% of the NPP’s polling station executives do the actual work they are supposed to do.”
“You don’t expect John Boadu or Sammi Awuku or Wontumi and Sam Pyne to come and go house to house… It is the polling station executives who are supposed to do that but they don’t do it. […] Even me Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu if I am doing house to house, how many houses can I enter?
It is the polling station executives who must enter every house with the work of the party. But I can say 90 percent don’t do anything. They don’t add anything to the party… They don’t help us in anyway… They only milk aspirants. It will not help us… Going forward”.. he said.
Mr. Mensa-Bonsu has previously cited the losses of Ben Abdallah Banda, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Dr. Assibey-Yeboah, Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, as bad examples for the country’s parliamentary governance. “We can’t go on like this”.
“Building the capacity of a Member of Parliament is not a four-year matter; it is not even an eight-year matter. The axiom is that in parliament, the longer a person stays the better he becomes.”
Mr. Mensah-Bonsu, who is the MP for Suame, further suggested that experienced MPs must be protected to ensure continuity in Parliament.
The ruling NPP will have a lot of new faces as parliamentary candidates during the December polls, following losses to Frederick Opare Ansah, the Chairman of the Communications Committee and Collins Owusu Amankwaah, the Chairman of the Government Assurances Committee.
Other incumbents who lost their seats are William Quaittoo Agyapong, the Chairman of the Education Committee, and Alex Agyekum, the Chairman of the Youth and Sports Committee.
-harrygraphic.com
