Invest in ‘Parliament and You’ to build responsible children - Afenyo-Markin urges institutions

The Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has called on the private sector, legislators, civil society and Ghana’s development partners to invest in the “Parliament and You” initiative to help develop knowledgeable and responsible young children.

He said many sponsorship opportunities required investments to encourage young children to read widely and learn more about parliamentary democracy.

“The prizes and competitions that will incentivise young readers require investment, and that investment will yield a democratic dividend that money cannot fully quantify,” he said.

Speaking at the launch of the “Parliament and You” in Parliament last Tuesday, Mr Afenyo-Markin expressed optimism that if young people became aware of parliamentary conventions and procedures through accessible educational materials, they would be better equipped to appreciate the workings of Parliament, engage more meaningfully in democratic processes and develop a more informed and balanced view of legislative practices.

“I want to state unequivocally that the Minority Caucus stand fully behind the initiative and I urge all members of Parliament on both sides of the House to also support the initiative,” he said.

The initiative, which is a partnership between Parliament and the Junior Graphic, will offer a weekly child-friendly publication of articles and stories in the Junior Graphic for approximately 50,000 children between the ages of 10 and 17 years.

It will simplify parliamentary concepts, functions and procedures through engaging age-appropriate content including features, stories, quizzes, puzzles, illustrations and competitions.

Event

The launch in Parliament House attracted the leadership of the House, the Parliamentary Service Staff, schoolchildren and officials of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL).

Notable among them were the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Bernard Ahiafor; the Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga; the Minister of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George; the Clerk-to-Parliament, Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror; the Managing Director of GCGL, Ato Afful; the Editor, Graphic, Theophilus Yartey, and the Assistant Editor, Junior Graphic, Eugenia Asare Tandoh.

Mr Afenyo-Markin said Parliament, a creature of the Constitution, performed three essential functions for good governance in the country.

He said the Legislature made laws, exercised oversight over the Executive, including the power to approve budgets, scrutinised government expenditure and held ministers of state accountable, as well as represented the people, giving voice to the aspirations, grievances and interests of every Ghanaian.  

Those functions, noble and weighty as they were, had been persistently misunderstood over the years and at times deliberately misrepresented.

Too often, the Minority Leader said, constituents perceived Parliament as a theatre of political combat rather than a Chamber of deliberations.

“Parliamentary procedures are seen as obstructions rather than principled endeavour,” he said.

Mr Afenyo-Markin explained that the work of the Minority was a constitutional mandate and indispensable, yet it was often reduced to mere opposition for its own sake.

Nowhere, he said, was that misunderstanding more glaring than the exercise of Parliament’s vetting function.

When the House, he said, scrutinised ministerial nominees, asking probing questions, demanding accountability and, in some cases, declining to approve appointments, the Minority was not engaging in partisanship.

“We are fulfilling a constitutional duty; the vetting of ministerial nominees is a constitutional requirement, and its legitimacy is settled by the Supreme Court in the celebrated case J. H. Mensah vs Attorney-General 1997/1998,” he stated.

Mr Afenyo-Markin said when the Minority Caucus members rose from their seats and left the Chamber floor in protest, it was a form of protest which was permitted by the norms and practices of parliaments globally and it served a democratic function.

Similarly, he said, the boycott of sittings was equally grounded in parliamentary convention.

“When the Minority Caucus announces that it will not participate in a scheduled sitting, we are making a deliberate and calculated statement about the legitimacy of the proceedings, the state of negotiations or a fundamental breach of process,” the Minority Leader explained.

He said the decision to stay away was taken after due consultation with full awareness of the constitutional implications and as a last resort when the right channels had been exhausted.

Bridging gap

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu said when there was a decision to vote against government business, the rejections of budget lines and the refusal to approve nominees, “these acts are not acts of sabotage, but they are core mechanics of multi-party legislature”.

“The Minority is not in Parliament to always agree; we are in Parliament to scrutinise, to question and to offer alternatives where necessary,” he said.

Mr Afenyo-Markin said it was precisely the gap of perception and reality that made the “Parliament and You” educational initiative so relevant as it sought to deepen public understanding of parliamentary practice and bridge the distance between Parliament and the citizenry.

“Through the Junior Graphic, Parliament will now walk into classrooms, sit at breakfasts and travel on school buses and find its way into the homes of children across Ghana every Wednesday.

“The Parliament that once seemed distant and complex will become familiar, and our children will be able to read and understand the powers, functions and procedures of Parliament,” he said.

Commendation

Mr Ayariga said the Majority Caucus appreciated any efforts that built a culture of parliamentary democracy.

The use of Junior Graphic to create a space where young people would write and read about Parliament would develop an understanding of parliamentary democracy.

“Indeed, indeed, in my opinion this is the very foundation on which we can build an edifice of citizens that will defend this Parliament and this democracy the day that it will be challenged.

“We assure you that Parliament will open its doors at all times and whatever we can to enable young people to understand what happens and what we do in Parliament, we will,” Mr Ayariga said.