Opinion: Weak parliamentary opposition not helping
The New Patriotic Party (NPP), with its sizeable number of 123 Members in Parliament, is not providing effective opposition to get the ruling National Democractic Congress (NDC) government on its toes to deliver on the plethora of promises and assurances given to the people per their 2012 general election manifesto.
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Issues at the heart of Ghanaians seem to be ignored as the leading Minority Party is rather focused on internal bickering.
Unfulfilled promises
The NDC government continues to get away with unfulfilled promises against the backdrop of a non-vibrant NPP Minority parliamentary opposition that seems to be sleeping on the job and remains a massive disappointment to the people of Ghana, who rely on it to get the government to run our nation in the right order.
I am not alone in this assertion of poor performance by the leading opposition party in our national Parliament. The National Watch, a pro-democracy pressure group, has called on the Minority in Parliament to offer cogent alternative policy ideas to the government and desist from unproductive debates, saying the Minority had failed to highlight critical policy issues or alternatives, and, therefore, advised them to back off the unproductive road of “deception spree.”
A senior lecturer at the School of Communication Studies of the University of Ghana, Professor Kwame Karikari, has also criticised the NPP for failing to put the government on its toes.
The NPP, Mr Karikari opines, is spending more time eating each other up rather than targeting all the exposé the media houses were doing.
Mr Kennedy Agyapong, the NPP Member of Parliament for Assin Central, has vowed to throw his weight behind the NDC “if plots to destroy the NPP continue to be fuelled by certain selfish individuals hailing from the Ashanti Region.”
The case of old security guards clashing with new security guards at the NPP headquarters and Madam Hajia Fati’s vitriolic attack on the NPP General Secretary, Mr Agyapong, branding him a “beast” for disallowing her access to the party headquarters are examples of serious problems in the NPP ranks.
Even the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketsiah (General Mosquito), has chipped in with a call for an orderly and democratic arrangement to resolve the security recruitment problems at the NPP headquarters.
Ghanaians expect the Minority NPP in Parliament to keep the NDC government in check, but bitter differences within the NPP are bound to have adverse effect on their members in Parliament. No rocket scientist is needed here to work this assertion out.
Question to ponder
A question to ponder about is, if the campaign to elect the party’s flag bearer is generating belligerency within the party, how on earth can the party be trusted by the electorate to give them power via the next general election? The ongoing factionalism in the NPP camp (Akufo Addo and Kyeremanten sympathisers) is attracting unnecessary publicity while the nation has fallen short of some issues that the leading Minority can play an important role in helping to resolve.
There are many issues of national concern, e.g. Gyeeda, Sada, Subah, Isofoton, Woyome, the matter of beneficiaries of the 932 tractors and accessories imported from India by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and other cases of malfeasance and lately the case of Ghanaian supporters in Brazil 2014 World Cup reduced to sleeping on the floor, to name only a few.
These and other critical issues require urgent attention of the Minority and there is no magic wand they can use to operate effectively in Parliament without the support and backing of the eminent men and women in the NPP who are not in Parliament.
The leading Minority in Parliament are there for every Ghanaian and not just for their party folks. Their action or inaction are important to us all. We, therefore, pray that its conduct reflects the nation’s best interests. That is why we expect them to stay focused on responsibilities in the House and avoid distractions such as internal wrangling within their party in the performance of their parliamentary duties.
Most NPP members I come across — either personally or on radio talk shows — believe their party is the automatic choice of the people of Ghana to take over the reins of political power from the NDC come 2016 general election.
Complacency
This self-held belief makes them complacent enough to assume they are destined for the Flagstaff House in 2017 come rain or shine and they seem to have taken their eyes off the ball to focus on the forthcoming flag bearer race, thereby giving the odd carte blanche to the NDC to have their own way without being called to order on some salient issues in Parliament.
However, posterity may have other ideas and replace the NDC with a more credible alternative of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), which is a possibility. Others may be in denial at their own peril though. The advent of PPP on the political scene makes it a three-horse race and a different ball game at that. We are, therefore, three in the race; NDC, NPP and PPP, which is now the second largest opposition party in Ghana.
What we need in Ghana today is not about the leading Minority opposition party preparing to come to power in two years” time for the sake of it when there are pressing issues, namely the state of our economy, securing our national borders, internal security, regional development, power outages, agricultural revolution, good roads, national railway transportation and many more to be addressed.
Our nation needs a party that is issues-based and one that would do something very different from the usual unproductive norm in order to propel our country towards full employment.
I would like to see an opposition party in Parliament actively vetting every issue on the table, approving the good bits and constructively calling to question issues that are detrimental to our national good. In much the same way as the ruling NDC has its way, the leading NPP Minority opposition has its say.
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It, therefore, goes without saying that any good political party in opposition must do all its work in-house rather than taking to the streets issues that can and must be dealt with in the House, especially when they have 123 men and women in Parliament.
The recent mass demonstrations by the NPP in Kumasi on Tuesday June 10, 2014 was unnecessary when the message of the demonstrations was to register the party’s displeasure at the perceived increasing hardships in the region such as the effects of a new capitation policy under the National Health Insurance Scheme and the excessive erratic power supply, ‘dum sor dum sor.’ Street demonstrations would be best left to the parties without representation in the current Parliament, of which PPP is no exception.
— A member of the Progressive People’s Party, UK branch