Opinions of Sunday, 14 October 2012

Columnist: Oben, Nana

Has The Ghanian Mentality For Mediocrity Finally Hit Parliament?

I am a Ghanaian professional in the US. The lower floor of my house has 2 huge rooms that I decided to convert into rent paying student rooms. All that was required was to partition the 2 rooms, install lights and wall plugs, so I thought. After I had done that, I asked my friend, a county planner to give his blessing.
“You are NOT in Ghana you know, where everything goes”, he said. “In America you have to follow the letter of the law with its codes and all. And these laws are carefully drafted by knowledgeable law makers supported by their staff. So sorry you can’t do what you intend to do without meeting the standards of the codes, which will get you the necessary permits.
WORSE STILL ANY OF YOUR RENTERS CAN SUE YOU IN COURT, AND WIN FOR SUB-STANDARD PROPERTY.
With me smarting from these revelations, he phoned me immediately Parliament passed the CI 78.
“ I don’t believe it! YOUR PARLIAMENT KNOWS A LAW THEY ARE ABOUT TO PASS HAS SOME FALWS/ERRORS, AND WENT AHEAD TO PASS IT ANYWAY INSTEAD OF CORRETING THOSE ERRORS?” I heard on both “PEACE” and “JOY”, an NDC commentator saying “ Oh those errors were minor, such as typo and misspelling, and were very few”. “Definitely A TEAM OF GOOD TYPISTS COULD CORRECT THESE ERRORS IF THEY WERE THIS MINIMUM AND INSIGNIFICANT. Where was your speaker in all this, asleep or drunk?
NOTE: I AM NOT FOR OR AGAINST THE CREATION OF 45 ADDITIONAL CONSTITUENCIES, I WONDER WHY A LAW BODY WOULD PASS A LAW KNOWING IT CONTAINS ERRORS.
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE RUSH FOR PASSING THIS CI78?”
You see our Parliament popularly referred to by members as “AUGUST” has become nothing less than a DEN OF THIEVES. Very Very Very few people go there with the aim of serving their country. THEIR WHOLE AIM IS TO GO LOOT THE COUNTRY’S COFFERS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE (EXEMPLIFIED BY THE SAGAS OF MABEY AND JOHNSON, CP, WAYOME, IBRAHIM ADAMS, MALLAM ISSAH, MOSES ASAGA, MUNTAKA, AMAJILO, THE CUBAN STUDENT “SCHOLARSIPS”, THE STX, MERCHANT BANK, ETC, ETC. )
THEY DO NOT NEED TO RUSH TO CREATE 45 NEW CONTITUENCIES IF SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE OF GHANA WAS THEIR GOAL. RATHER RESOURCING THE EXISTING DISTRICTS (WITH THE SAME TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE) WITH THE SALARIES, PERKS, EX-GRATIA AWARDS OF THE NEW 45 MPS, DEVELOPMENT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF INSTAND COMMUNICATIONS AND MONITORING.

Maybe our SUPREME COURT, that dwells on and works with the SANCTITY of documents, will stop this degradation of our Parliament.