General News of Tuesday, 9 December 2014

Source: starrfmonline.com

Parliament passes code of conduct for lawmakers

awmakers in Ghana can no longer act both within and outside the lawmaking chamber without reference to a code of conduct.

The legislature after several months of deliberations has now passed a code of conduct to regulate the activities of the parliamentarians.

Majority Chief Whip Muntaka Mubarak who spoke to Starr News said he was excited about the new codes.

But MP for Tamale North, Inusah Fuseini insists the code in its current form is for Ghana’s parliament but ambiguous.

“It’s good, I always say that if you want to know law and order is good for a society what you need to do is to watch the traffic lights when they go off, and everybody is minding his own business and you see chaos at its best.

“Unregulated conduct in the Parliament can be chaotic, regulated you find order and discipline, that is why I support it,” Hon. Fuseini said.

He added, “but the most important criticism I have about the conduct is that it is funded on law, people will not just act because they feel like acting, people act in a certain way sometimes because of fear of sanctions and sometimes where there are no sanctions then it becomes a toothless bulldog and people can act with impunity and they would never be punished.

“So if we have a code then that code must also have a sanctions regime and we don’t leave those sanctions to a committee to investigate and recommend”.