Eastern MPs must work for rehabilitation of roads

The Parliamentary Constituency Forum has tasked the Eastern Regional Parliamentary Caucus to jointly work towards the rehabilitation of roads in their region.

The participants observed that virtually all the roads in the Region were deteriorating from a bad stage to a worse level and if immediate remedial steps were not taken the situation could get out of hands.

The forum is organized by Parliament to bring its work closer to the constituencies.

Mr Ofosu Asamoah, Member of Parliament (MP) for Kade, however, said, on the two occasion that the President visited the Eastern Region, he promised to rehabilitate the roads but told the people to vote against him if he failed to honour his promise.

He said having prescribed his own penalty; he was convinced that the President would ensure that the roads were done.

The participants questioned why MPs knew that that they were not directly responsible for executing development projects yet they always made such promises on their electioneering platforms.

Reacting to this concern, Mr Asamoah asked the electorate to question aspiring MPs who promised them projects on how such projects would be funded.

Mr Asamoah, however, urged the people to contribute towards the formation of community and neighbourhood watch committees to help improve the security in the area and to protect the citizens against armed robbery.

Baba Jamal, MP for Akwatia, explained that MPs were not mandated to directly provide projects but to facilitate them by presenting the cases of their constituencies to the appropriate implementing agencies.

Baba Jamal said the MPs Common Fund was never given to the MPs but was held by the District Assemblies and when the MPs wanted to use it, they made their recommendations to the Assemblies to implement the projects in their names.

On the financing of MPs, he explained that, many of the financial institutions had loan facilities for the provision of vehicles and residential accommodation, which were deducted at source from the salaries of beneficiaries and if there were debts at the end of their term of office the balance were deducted from their ex-gratia.

The participants called for the release of the concession of the Akwatia Diamond Mines, which had already been mined to the chiefs for construction of residential accommodation.

Mr Richard Acheampong of the Public Affairs Directorate of Parliament urged the electorates to desist from making financial and unreasonable demands on their MPs.

He explained that such demands often distracted the MPs from their main role of law making because when they should be in Parliament they would be somewhere else trying to satisfy some demands of their electorates.