Parliament for serious business — Nana Nketsia

The Paramount Chief of Essikado Traditional Area, Nana Kobina Nketsia V, has deplored the “unserious” attitude and gestures of parliamentarians, saying Parliament is not a place for jokers.

He said the giggling on the floor of Parliament when serious matters were being discussed must give way to an attitude of serious work.

“We don’t joke in Parliament; we voted people to Parliament on our behalf for serious parliamentary business, not for people to go and laugh when serious issues are being tabled,” Nana Nketsia said.

He said it was about time Members of Parliament (MPs) saw Parliament as the embodiment of the sovereignty of the people of Ghana and attached seriousness and respect to colleagues making a contribution in the House.
 

Statement to Parliament

Nana Nketsia made the statement when the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, and parliamentarians called on him at his palace last Monday as part of activities towards the celebration of 30 years of parliamentary democracy in Ghana.

The Speaker was accompanied by the Deputy Minority Leader, Armah Kofi Buah; the Western Regional Minister and MP for Takoradi, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, and other MPs.

Nana Nketsia said he was appalled by a recent case when an MP making a contribution to the debate on the Mid-year Budget Review on the floor of the House was met with snickering by fellow MPs.

“John Abdulai Jinapor, an MP for Yapei Kusawgu Constituency, was making a very important comment, and to my surprise, his colleagues sitting were laughing.

Then I asked myself if Parliament is a place for people to go and laugh,” he said.

“Mr Jinapor was speaking, and his remarks were coherent and important.

Those of us watching were expecting other members of the House to allow him to make his point but what did we see?

I do not know if what he said was funny,” he said.

“Let me use the opportunity to tell them that we don’t joke in Parliament, I struggle to understand why the laughter or if it is because we don’t understand the English diction of the member speaking to appreciate the content of his submissions, or if the MP should have spoken in local language for them to appreciate his points,” he said.
 

Eeii Ato

Nana Nketsia also referenced a recent case during the vetting of a ministerial nominee who exclaimed “eei Ato, eeii Ato, eeii Ato” in response to a question posed to the Minority Leader, Dr Casiel Ato Forson.

“I asked myself if Parliament has been turned into a market place or if they (MPs) think they were standing in a market.

Parliament is a serious place, and we cannot continue like that.

Those developments, I suggest, must be captured in the Parliamentary Hansard,” he said.

He said the truth should be told that there was the need for some level of seriousness during parliamentary proceedings.

Nana Nketsia commended the Speaker and his team for the steps taken to send Parliament to the doorstep of the people across the country.

“It is a good step the current speaker has taken to reach out to larger stakeholders across the country.

I have a feeling that his moves would save the country,” he said.

Mr Bagbin said before the contemporary democracy and parliamentary process currently in place, “Parliament has long been established in Africa traditionally by traditional rulers”.

He explained that before what exists as democracy today, African traditional leadership ran a stable system of rulership.
 

Before democracy

The traditional rulers, he said, learnt from the tripod system of leadership and established the kingdom together. 

“Before the emergence of the colonial rulers, our kingdoms existed, and they came to learn from us and took it away and polished and brought it to us and told us what we have is not good and that we should follow them,” Mr Bagbin said.

He said one of the mistakes of the African political ruling class was that “those elected assume that the people who elected them know what they are doing.

The truth, however, is that they don’t, and this has resulted in the overthrows,” he added.

“Those who governed us before independence used our chiefs to govern us, but we say we don’t want them.

The truth is that the traditional leaders are the people the followers believe in,” he said.

Unrest 

Mr Bagbin said it was interesting that Ghana’s neighbours had seen some political upheavals, and that it was necessary to avoid the danger and bridge the information gap.

Parliament at the doorstep of the people, he said, “will also help to tell the people the challenges we have been meeting and we think together, and then correct the challenges so we can move forward”.