The Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has argued that it is only fair for the house to secure the proposed $28 million car loan agreement presented by the Ministry of Finance.
According to Mr Dafeamekpor, some of his colleagues come to Parliament in public transport such as Uber, which he noted poses a great security threat to such Members of Parliament.
He added that they [MPs] also deserve official vehicles which are specially designated to some state officeholders instead of the loans given to them to purchase vehicles.
He has, therefore, countered calls for the rejection of the proposed $28 million car loan. “It is not about rejecting it…As we speak we have been in office for seven months and our colleagues who are new and did not have the benefit of having strong vehicles come to this House with Uber and it’s very dangerous…the arrangement may be wrong and for me it is wrong but I cannot say because it is wrong, if there are no other alternatives, I won’t accept it.” He said in an interview with JoyNews on July 7.
The Legislator, however, intimated that it’s about time the government secured official vehicles for Parliamentarians to perform their duties just like state officeholders. He cited the Electoral Commissioner, Supreme Court Judges, Ministers of State among others as examples.
“MPs are the only category of article 71 holders who are not given an official vehicle. So if the agreement is that we are given a loan to purchase official vehicles, I think it is very wrong. My position is that the government should take steps and get us official vehicles to perform the functions of our office in the next four years like it is done for all the other categories.
“Check the condition of service for the Electoral Commissioner. She has about 5 military officers following her in two land cruisers. She is an article 71 officeholder. She was not given money or a loan to buy these vehicles. I don’t have five military men following me.
“Supreme Court judges have Land Cruisers; they were not given loans to buy their Land Cruisers. Ministers of State have Land Cruisers or official vehicles. Yesterday you saw in the papers that another facility is been taken by the executive to acquire official vehicles for members of the council of state.
The medium-term $28 million loan when approved will be paid back by the members in the course of their four-year term as MPs, this is according to the Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei-Asare.
