Government not responsible for provision of private protection for MPs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Feb. 10, 2016
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

In the wake of the brutal stabbing death of my cousin – we never met – Mr. Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu on Tuesday, Feb. 9, the Parliamentary Minority Leader, Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, attempted to blame the government for refusing to avail all Members of the august House off-duty state-security protection in the form of 24-hour police sentry in their homes (See “Osei-Kyei: State Has Failed to Protect MPs” Modernghana.com/ Ghanaweb.com 2/9/16).

The main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) leader’s argument was that currently cabinet appointees, regional ministers and other highly placed members of the executive branch of government are provided domestic protection at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayer. On the face of it, it perfectly makes sense for the State to extend such off-duty protection measures to the members of our National Assembly.

The problem here, though, is the impractical implication that virtually all 275 parliamentarians deserve police protection in their homes around the clock. That would mean the imperative need for the government to exponentially increase the nation’s budget in the sphere of security. It would, in short, translate into the recruitment of several thousand additional police and other security personnel.

Whether a country that can scarcely afford to pay the salaries of its educators and civil servants on schedule can afford such a humongous expenditure is a question that Mr. Mensah-Bonsu and his colleagues and associates ought to seriously ponder. The bottom-line, as one renowned security expert promptly pointed out, is that what needs to be done, as a matter of urgency, is for the State or government to promptly and considerably beef up the general level of the country’s security. Ghanaians cannot simply pick and choose, Animal Farm-style, who needs to be better protected than who else. Each and every citizen in the country, as well as non-citizen residents, deserve equal protection.

But what is even more significant to observe here is that in the wake of the Minority Leader’s call for the immediate extension of State protection to him and his parliamentary colleagues and associates, I Googled the fact of whether Congressional Representatives, as well as Senators, right here in the United States, one of the biggest global economies, maintained the kind of security regime or measures that Mr. Mensah-Bonsu wanted Ghanaians to believe was routine throughout most of the advanced democracies, especially the West. To my “pleasant surprise,” it turns out that no such expensive protective measures for the Members of the United States’ Congress exists.

This is quite interesting because not very long ago, Mr. Mensah-Bonsu, if memory serves yours truly accurately, was either the leader or a prominent member of a Ghanaian parliamentary delegation that toured the New York State Assembly. I wonder whether Mr. Mensah-Bonsu had occasion or opportunity to enquire of his American counterparts as to whether, indeed, any taxpayer-footed domestic protection measures existed for their exclusive benefit. The answer, of course, is a resounding “No!”

And so why would Mr. Mensah-Bonsu so cavalierly presume to abuse the generosity of the severely strained and excruciatingly hurting Ghanaian taxpayer? It is simply because the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Kumasi-Suame believes that he can readily get away with the same! Needless to say, our parliamentarians are among the best paid public servants in the country. Even the least academically equipped Member of Parliament earns considerably more in salaries, benefits and allowances than the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, or the head of any one of our major institutions of academic, cultural and professional development.

Like here in the United States, nearly each and every Ghanaian parliamentarian is quite well-heeled enough to be able to afford for her-/himself the services of personal body guards or private security personnel in their homes around the clock. According to The Hill newspaper, published by the United States Congress, the only protective measures for Congressional Representatives and Senators required at the American taxpayer’s expense is the provision of security personnel within the physical confines of Capitol Hill or the buildings housing the United States’ Congress.

There are, of course, instances in which 24-hour security measures have been provided for some members of the United States Congress at public expense; but this has invariably been in situations where the need for such protective measures have been individually and legally and/or objectively ascertained to be of imperative necessity. So far, Mr. Mensah-Bonsu has not offered any forensically sustainable proof that all 275 members of Ghana’s National Assembly are at an imminent risk of being personally harmed one way or another.

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