A new report assessing the performance of Members of Ghana\u2019s 6th Parliament, shows that, some nineteen MPs out of the 275, never spoke on the floor of the House in the last four years of the sixth parliament.<\/p>\n
The 19 were made up of 16 in the then National Democratic Congress (NDC) majority, and 3 in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) minority.<\/p>\n
The MPs include \u00a0Kwasi Boateng Adjei (New Juaben North), Nii Oakley Quaye-Kumah\u00a0(Krowor), \u00a0Mary Salifu Boforo (Savelugu), Jeff Tetteh\u00a0Kavianu (Upper Many Krobo), and Kwabena Amankwa\u00a0Asiamah (Fanteakwa North).<\/p>\n
The report, produced by Odekro, a civil society organisation with focus on Ghana\u2019s governance system, rated the performance of all MPs based on metrics that include their contributions on the floor of parliament and their attendance.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the worst performing MPs in the Sixth Parliament were Evans Paul Aidoo (Sefwi-Wiawso constituency) who scored 11.50% on the report sheet. Queenstar Pokua Sawyerr (Agona east constituency) scored 16.98% while, Dr. Nii Oakley Quaye-Kumah (Krowor constituency) 17.09%.<\/p>\n
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong (Assin Central constituency) scored 18.29% while\u00a0Dr. Mustapha Ahmed (Ayawaso East), 18.60%.<\/p>\n
The Member of Parliament for Old Tafo constituency, Anthony Akoto Osei, and that of Ketu North constituency James Klutse Avedzi, were among those who scored the highest marks in terms of attendance and performance.<\/p>\n
A statement released by Odekro on the report said, \u201cWe verified the completeness of our dataset by comparing our cache of data to a list of Parliament\u2019s sitting days obtained from staff of the Parliamentary service. On each sitting day, three documents are produced namely, the Hansard, Order Paper and Votes and Proceedings. Consequently, for each date on Parliament\u2019s calendar we have access to three primary documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe verified the accuracy of this data set by confirming that each document bore the official seal of Parliament, followed the pattern of Parliament\u2019s formatting and was marked as having been produced by the Table Office or the Hansard Office respectively. Odekro\u2019s Content Manager and Research Assistant both verified each documentary source of our data,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe therefore assigned a weight of 40% of total score to attendance and 60% to the contribution score. Our rationale is simple. An MP\u2019s presence in Parliament is practically of no effect if he or she does not contribute to deliberations in the house. MPs who are both present and contribute should therefore normally be ranked better than MPs who make regular appearances in Parliament but do not contribute to the work of the house,\u201d the statement further said.
\nThe report document indicated that 73 out of the 275 Members of Parliament were absent without permission; a violation of article 97(1)(c) of the constitution.<\/p>\n
It also noted that, only 28 MPs held a clean record of never absenting themselves from the house without permission.<\/p>\n
\u201cNPP MPs made an average of 199 statements over the 4 year period; 33 statements more than NDC MPs\u2019 166 statements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here for the full report<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Jonas Nyabor\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
\nFollow @jnyabor<\/a><\/p>\n