Politics

Legislator propose nat’l discourse on ex-gratia

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Manso Adubia Constituency, Frimpong Addo, has proposed a national discourse on the presentation of ex-gratia to legislators in the country after their tenure of office.

“The frequent, unending complaints, criticisms from members of the public and civil society organisations (CSO) about the gratuity paid to us for offering services to the nation, ought to be put to rest by initiating a national debate to collate the acceptability or otherwise of the citizenry on ex-gratia,” he noted.

Mr Addo made the proposal at a collaboration forum on anti-corruption convened by Star Ghana Foundation in Accra for its partners working on anti-corruption projects in various parts of the country.

The participants interactions with the legislator, who currently serves on the Environmental Sub-Committee of Parliament and former member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) , was to enable him to give insight on the work of parliament in responding to corruption and its related issues.

Mr Addo, who engaged the participants in a frank, fair and genuine partnership discourse, explained that “even though the cost of political campaigns has become expensive to run, it invariably impacted cost of ex-gratia paid to MPs at the end of their tenure.

“Frequent demands from constituents, other social obligations, and support to needy people at the constituency level all come to play to raise expenditure of an MP, which also has the tendency to aggravate spending portfolio of the law maker, by estimate gratuity at the end of four year sitting as law maker may not be too much to receive.

“The essence of ensuring MPs deliver their roles effectively and efficiently cannot be separated from genuine motivation, hence the need to ensure value for money played an essential role in motivating MPs to give off their best,” Mr Addo indicated.

Answering questions on the passing of the Right to Information (RTI) Bill before parliament into law, he assured that parliament was doing everything in its capacity to ensure the bill was passed into law, insisting that “there were several bills before the house which also needed immediate attention, as for this parliament, we will ensure it is passed“.

Sharing experiences on the role of parliament in fighting corruption, Mr Addo observed that the African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption (APNAC), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and the Governance Assurances Committee (GAC) were all structures established by parliament to manage issues related to corruption.GNA

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