Thursday, 23rd January, 2025
Hon Davis Ansah Opoku
Mpraeso
Mr Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity to make a Statement on the High Attrition Rate in Parliament and the Need for Reforms in Political Funding and Candidate Selection Processes. I rise to address a matter of significant importance to the stability and advancement of our democracy: the high attrition rate in Parliament.
Mr Speaker, over the years, numerous capable MPs have lost their seats due to systemic challenges rather than a lack of competence or dedication. Today, I seek to identify the causes of this issue and propose practical reforms to safeguard the integrity of our parliamentary system.
Mr Speaker, the high attrition rate in Ghana’s Parliament is a complex issue that affects all political parties. For instance, within the New Patriotic Party (NPP), from the Seventh to the Ninth Parliament, 94 per cent of MPs lost their seats, leaving only 10 out of 169 MPs remaining. This turnover undermines institutional memory, disrupts the continuity of governance, and deprives Parliament of the expertise of experienced legislators. The primary drivers of this problem include, the weak enforcement of the Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act 574), which mandates that political parties disclose their funding sources, but we all know that enforcement has been weak. This has allowed financial considerations to dominate party primaries, prioritising wealth over competence.
Mr Speaker, the second point is the cost of politics. Campaigning and sustaining a political presence are prohibitively expensive, compelling MPs to finance constituency activities from their own resources. This leads to financial strain and allows wealthier individuals to overshadow competent MPs during elections. The third point is the contentious candidate selection processes. Political party primaries are often divisive and financially driven, which undermines the merit-based selection. My fourth point is the misunderstanding of the roles of MPs’. Many constituents view MPs as local development agents, which leads to unrealistic expectations. MPs are often replaced when they fail to meet these expectations, even if their legislative performance is strong.
Mr Speaker, the fifth point is the lack of local government reform. The inability to elect Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) has shifted development responsibilities for local leaders onto MPs which further distorts public perception of their roles.
Mr Speaker, my proposals for reform include: first, strengthening enforcement of the Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act 574). The Act provides a legal framework for regulating political parties, especially their finances. However, enforcement remains inadequate. To reduce the influence of money in politics, I recommend strict enforcement of financial disclosure requirements, penalties for noncompliance by imposing sanctions on parties that fail to adhere to financial transparency rules, and regulating political funding. Building on the Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act 574), Ghana should enact comprehensive political funding legislation to level the playing field. This law should include public funding for political parties, that is, allocating funding based on electoral performance to reduce dependency on private financiers. We should also campaign spending limits. We should cap campaign expenses to curb excessive spending like we see in the United Kingdom (UK).
Mr Speaker, transparency and accountability. Parties must publicly disclose donations, including amounts and identities of donors. One major cause of the high attrition rate in Parliament is the divisive and financially driven nature of candidate selection within political parties. Ghana can draw inspiration from Argentina’s Open, Simultaneous, and Obligatory Primaries (PASO) system introduced through Law No. 26,571 in 2009.
The PASO system allows all registered voters, not party members, to participate in party primaries. All political parties hold primaries on the same day to ensure fairness and transparency and candidates must secure a minimum percentage of votes to qualify for the general election. This process is supervised by an independent electoral authority to ensure credibility.
When Ghana adopts this PASO system, it would promote fairness and reduce the meritocracy that we see in our political system. Ensures transparency under the oversight of the Electoral Commission and fosters unity within parties by minimising internal disputes during primaries.
Mr Speaker, the Constitution should be amended to elect MMDCEs. This would empower local government leaders to oversee development projects and allow MPs to concentrate on their legislative roles. We need to strengthen the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to inform the public about the roles of MPs. Sufficient funding should be allocated for campaigns to clarify the difference between legislative duties and development responsibilities.
Mr Speaker, my sixth point is that I propose that Parliament’s earlier plan should be revived to construct dedicated constituency offices nationwide to strengthen the connection between MPs and their constituents. These offices would provide a permanent platform for MPs to effectively engage with their constituents, address concerns, and communicate their achievements. While pursuing the goal of constructing constituency offices, I suggest two interim measures: assemblies and MMDAs could offer MPs office spaces within their administrative facilities to serve as constituency offices. Parliament, perhaps, could consider leasing office spaces in constituencies for MPs to ensure accessibility and continuity in representation. Parliament should support both approaches by providing logistical assistance, including basic furnishings and professional staff to maximise the effectiveness of these offices.
Mr Speaker, I would conclude by calling on this House to prioritise these reforms to secure the future of Ghana’s democracy and ensure that Parliament remains a bastion of competent and experienced leadership.
Hon Joseph Kwame Kumah
Kintampo North
Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this laudable Statement.
Mr Speaker, it is a truism that we are faced with this challenge of rapid turnover of MPs in this House, making it a bad precedent not to have very experienced hands to lay hands on.
Mr Speaker, I will restrict myself to some of the causes that he has not mentioned. What brings about these things? One of the problems that brings about this is that Government appointees of both parties, who are never MPs but are given very juicy appointments, tend to accumulate funds, and undo Members of Parliament who are doing their work on the floor of Parliament. Both political parties are guilty of this offence. We will be in the House, contribute, go to our constituencies, attend programs, make the party popular on the ground; then, somebody is just given an appointment, restrict himself or herself in a particular office, accumulates money and the next thing is to target a constituency to undo the person during primaries.
Sincerely, if both political parties do not deal with this issue, it will continue to happen, and we will have one-term Members of Parliament existing in this House. In the long run, the country stands to suffer the most because we will have put square pegs in round holes in this House, and the nation will finally lose.
Mr Speaker, thank you, and I thank my brother for bringing up this issue.
Hon Felix Kwakye Ofosu
Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese
Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I need to thank my Colleague, Mr Agbana for being gracious enough to give this opportunity to me. I fully associate with my Colleague, the Mr Davis Ansah Opoku of the Mpraeso Constituency who once upon a time, was my junior in school but is now my senior in Parliament, such is the vicissitude of life.
Mr Speaker, he makes an important point about the need for intra-party reforms in terms of the way candidates are selected to contest for Parliamentary seats. The monetisation of the process has become extremely detrimental to the well-being of this House. What has happened is that quality is increasingly taking a backseat, and moneybags are holding sway. The only way around it is for the parties to realise that it is in their interests that their best and brightest come to Parliament. Because it is the quality inherent in those who come to this House that shapes the way in which governance is undertaken.
There was a time when parties actually had to go headhunting in order to select candidates for certain constituencies. But now, every Tom, Dick, and Harry shows up, to the extent that they have deep pockets, they are able to ascend to the candidacy of parties in various constituencies. This is not sustainable. The amount of money that one needs to spend in order to win party primaries often affects one's ability to prosecute a meaningful campaign in a general elections. Because by the time you are done, you would either be deep in debt or totally bankrupt. So, reforms are an absolute necessity for the political parties in terms of how primaries are structured and candidates emerge.
There is a second leg to Mr Ansah’s Statement which we need to consider carefully. It is about whether or not MPs are development agents. In fact on paper, MPs are not development agents but essentially legislators. At most, we hold some influence in terms of how we are able to direct development to our constituencies. But there is also an objective reality that we must face. That reality is that government by virtue of their status as a developing country is unable to reach every part of this country and for that reason, there are those in our country who face extreme deprivation. They are literally cut off from the rest of this country and have basic needs that have remained unmet for decades. If someone does not step into that breach to meet some of those needs, there would be immense suffering.
Mr Speaker, that is why the decision to contest to be elected to Parliament must be one that is made after sober reflections and candid introspection to determine whether one has what it takes to do what this job requires. So even though on paper we are not development agents, we are forced to become development agents because of the reality of our people. I am sure if you went around and spoke to each one of us, you would know because you have been in this House for quite some time, that the sort of demands that are made on you, drain you. But if you do not meet those demands, those who come to make them would languish in suffering.
A certain level of resourcefulness is required of all those who want to come to this House. One does not need to be wealthy; you only need to be resourceful which means that you know what to do to mobilise the needed resources to address a particular problem. In the fullness of time as and when our status improves from a developing country to a developed one, I am sure that some of these problems would be addressed. So even as we repeat the mantra that we are not development agents, we must appreciate that the reality of this job is that you are going to be the focal points of development in your Constituency and that everybody would look up to you as the one who can address their concerns. It is not something we should shy away from but one that we should strive to achieve, pending Government’s effort to reach every part of this country e to resolve their needs.
I thank you for the opportunity to make my maiden Statement in this House.
Hon Kingsley Nyarko
Kwadaso
Mr Speaker, I am privileged to get this opportunity to add my voice to the Statement ably made by Mr Davis Ansah Opoku, Member of Parliament for Mpraeso Constituency, on the topic, “The High Attrition Rate in Parliament and the Need for Reforms in Political Funding and Candidate Selection Processes.”
Mr Speaker, this is a very important topic. It is a topic that I think we need to take a very critical look at. The causes that he has identified and the proposals to deal with them are in the right direction. Suffice to say, and I want to add an aspect of a cause that probably did not clutter his mind. Mr Speaker, my worry is the assessment of Members of Parliament by researchers and other scholars. We are in this House to perform certain responsibilities: legislative, deliberative, and financial oversight functions. These are some of the things that we do, and of course, we also represent our constituents here by bringing to the floor issues that bother them.
Mr Speaker, however, when assessments are done on Members of Parliament, the work we do here is excluded in most cases,. They do not see the importance of our contributions, the legislations we make, our inputs at Committee meetings and even at Plenary. These assessors do not care about any of these. Mr Speaker, if my constituents do not know my contribution on the floor such as the Bills I have helped to sponsor, ideas I have brought to bear on shaping policies of Government that have been brought to the House, how can they assess me effectively? Now, the assessments of Hon Members of Parliaments are restricted to only the constituencies on matters of development. But, we are told that Members of Parliament are not agents of development, rather the assemblies.
Mr Speaker, this trend, if not addressed, will contribute to the high attrition rates that we are experiencing in this House. There are a lot of our seniors here who are well versed when it comes to the rules or procedure in this House; we need their expertise. We need the expertise of somebody like Osahen Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, Mr Frank Annoh-Dompreh, Mr Mahama Ayariga, Mr Ahmed Ibrahim, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, and others. They have been here for a very long time and they understand the rules of engagement in this House. Assuming they were not around, how would the newcomers benefit from their experience and their rich expertise?
We need to let them understand that when they are assessing us, we would not begrudge them if they go to our constituencies, but they must also come here and know what we do. Probably, our constituents would now understand the work we do. So, this unbalanced assessment of Members of Parliament (MPs) is the major cause of the high attrition rate that we are experiencing in our democracy and Parliament.
Again, is it not possible that the cost burden as well—as the Hon Member who made the Statement did say that there should be a legislation that would cap how much you have to spend on the campaign trail and the other things we do and that would help. We have the Constitutional Instrument (CI) that governed the 2024 elections which is the CI 127. Would it not be possible for us to amend the CI to ensure that any candidate who goes beyond a certain amount of spending must be dealt with according to the law? We need to criminalise excessive spending, that would help us.
On that score, I want to pat the back of the Hon Member who made the Statement, I hope that we would take a very critical look at this Statement. If it is possible, the Speaker could take the lead to form a Committee to look into it. The high attrition rate is troubling and worrying and it must stop at a point, otherwise, we would lose the fine brains of our Legislators in this Parliament.
Mr Speaker, thank you, God bless you and may you live long.
Hon Isaac Boamah-Nyarko
Effia
Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to make some brief comments on the Statement made by the Member of Parliament for Mpraeso, Mr Davis Opoku.
Mr Speaker, this particular topic is very essential for Ghana's democratic development. In the sense that parliamentary representation is one of the key aspects of our democratic governance for which if we are not careful to build the capacity of Parliament, at the end of the day, our expectations of holding governments accountable would be violated.
The Hon Member who made the Statement made references to some of the deep causes of attrition in the Parliament of Ghana. When you take the records as he indicated, Members on the Minority Side currently have been most affected. He gave the statistics of up to almost 90 per cent attrition rate. But when you take the Ninth Parliament, as we speak about 115 Members have joined this new Parliament which represents close to about 45 per cent of the total number of Members of Parliament.
Of course, it is important that you have people coming into Parliament to also bring fresh ideas and new expertise to support the cause of Parliament. But the difficulty for us as a House is how to ensure that those who are contributing significantly to the development of parliamentary cause on both sides, whether majority or minority, are adequately protected.
This protection is a burden that political parties have to scrutinise. This is because as political parties, there should be mechanisms through which we are going to use to ensure that those who support the course of parliamentary duties on behalf of the party – because Members of Parliament mostly come from political parties. So, the ability to protect and ensure that quality is maintained for parliamentary business should not only be a concern for the general public but the political parties as well that support and bring the Members of Parliament to the House.
Mr Speaker, my recommendation to political parties, and I think the Hon Member for Kwadaso raised it, is the assessment of Members of Parliament. There have not been any critical criteria on the part of political parties to assess the performance of its Members of Parliament, based on what justification can be made to its Members in the various constituencies to see how best those parliamentarians would be protected.
So, my encouragement to political parties is to try as much as possible to do an effective assessment of Members of Parliament so that those that are strong in supporting government business or supporting the cause of parliament will be protected. On the other hand, I also believe that the financing of parliamentarian aspect, which Mr Felix Kwakye Ofosu raised, is also a cause to worry.
The recommendation that there should be a means by which the government would also play a role in ensuring that some of the burden that Members of Parliament incur in the course of their parliamentary duties are minimised. So that they do not end up resource constrained when it comes to the time that they are competing for re-election to Parliament.
On that note, Mr Speaker, the Maker of the Statement has done a fantastic job and we all commend him for that. Thank you very much.
Hon Mohammed Adamu Ramadan
Adentan
Thank you very much. Mr Speaker, I would like to commend the Maker of the Statement, Mr Davis Ansah Opoku of Mpraeso Constituency. Mr Speaker, this issue of expectations on Parliamentarians, Mr Speaker, is of great concern, but I think it is largely because Members of Parliament are the ones who are elected.
I am sure that if we get to the point where we begin to elect our chief executives, it will reduce a lot of pressure on the Members of Parliament. H. E. the President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has indicated that he is up for it to ensure that we begin to elect our Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs).
Mr Speaker, my constituency, for instance, Adentan, is a constituency that was set up in 2004. Since 2004, in addition to this election, this is the sixth elections we have had. In every single election we have gone into, we have had a different Member of Parliament so, all our MPs in Adentan have consistently been Backbenchers, either in sixth or seventh row. This is the first time the good people of Adentan have decided to retain their Member of Parliament, and they have their Member of Parliament moving from either the sixth or seventh row in the back to the middle. It clearly shows that Adentan is recognising the fact that it is important we maintain a certain level of consistency.
Mr Speaker, internally, the other challenge we have, like my Hon Colleague indicated, is that we have political appointees who would not nurture a constituency, but by virtue of positioning themselves properly around the cake of power, they would come in during primaries with a fat purse and come and destabilise Members of Parliament. I would like to commend the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for doing something during the last election. NPP had indicated that if a person was a chief executive and wanted to contest their Member of Parliament or is in a constituency where they have a sitting Member of Parliament, they needed to resign three clear years before the primaries. They also said that if a person was a constituency executive, maybe a chairman or a secretary, and they intended to contest their sitting Member of Parliament, they needed to resign for two clear years.
Mr Speaker, I would wish that my party would follow cue and even go a step further, and also adding not only MMDCEs or constituency executives, but also adding political appointees.
Because, Mr Speaker, we have people today who are chief executives who have not been active in the constituency. We have Members of Parliament who have nurtured constituency in opposition and have brought this party to power and yet, some of them, tomorrow during primaries, would come in with a fat purse and try to come and destabilise it.
So, I wish to commend the Hon Member for Mpraeso for this Statement. It is something that must be of concern to all of us and I hope and pray that we get to the point where we begin to elect MMDCEs. It is then that, clearly, our lines of responsibility will be well spelt out and everybody will know that as a Member of Parliament, our key role is to enact laws and then the MMDCE’s responsibility is to develop the community.
Mr Speaker, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the Statement.
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