Speaker, MPs Reject Riding Bicycles To Parliament …Confess How They Weep In Silence

Recent calls that Members of Parliament (MPs) should be compelled to use bicycles instead of 4×4 vehicles as a means of transportation for their official duties have been rejected by the Speaker, Alban Bagbin and several MPs.

Advocates for the ‘MPs on bikes’ agenda argue it is a common occurrence in the UK and would serve as a cost cutting measure for the Ghanaian tax payer.

The MPs explain that unlike other public servants, like Chief Executives of state institutions, the 4×4 vehicles they use for official duties are not free vehicles given them but they actually buy the vehicles on loans deducted from their salaries as payment.

Several MPs, in response to the call have expressed shock and disappointment. They say the persons making such calls have a deficit in knowledge of the nature of the duties of a Member of Parliament and the practical challenges therein.

The Speaker himself, Alban Bagbin, have described the call as misguided and misplaced.

Speaking at the Speaker’s Forum on Wednesday, Alban Bagbin said the persons making such suggestions simply because it is supposedly done in the United Kingdom should avert their minds to the differences between Ghanaian infrastructure and logistical challenges and that of the UK which makes it impractical for Ghana’s Parliamentarians to use bicycles for their official duties.

Speaker Bagbin noted: “I listened to some of our senior citizens on GTV talking about MPs being given bicycles, not cars or four-wheel drives. The MPs have no problem with being given bicycles because you have been reducing a lot of load from their heads, because with a bicycle, you know how far you can reach.

“But it’s because of this missing link between Parliament, the MPs, and our citizens. That will inform every senior person to call on TV for bicycles to be given to MPs.”

Speaking on the same matter, Walewale MP, Dr. Mahama Tiah Abdul-Kabiru, opened up on in a brutally frank disclosure on the challenges Ghanaian Parliamentarians go through and why the call on them to use bicycles for their official duties is not ideal.

“The land size of my constituency, Walewale, is larger than the whole of the Greater Accra Region. As an MP, you expect me to engage the people on policies, consult them on issues before I come to Parliament. Can I do that with a bicycle? Can I even do that with a saloon car? Can I even travel from Accra to Walewale with a bicycle?

“There are over 500 Chief Executives, MPs are only 276. These Chief Executives have salaries sometimes even more than the Members of Parliament and some of them have salaries even bigger than that of the President. The Chief Executives have cars paid by the State and fueled by the State, they have gardeners, they have security. If you are an MP, you buy your own car, you pay your driver, the State only gives you security by deploying someone from the Ghana Police Service. Any other thing, you have to do it by yourself

“I think we should make a full disclosure of what we get from Parliament, I have always said that if you do not have a sense of public duty, you would be disappointed by what you get going into Parliament. I was a postgraduate researcher at a university in Japan and my salary then was a good salary but I could not make the impact I made on people when I came to the Vice President’s office.”, Dr. Abdul-Kabiru noted when he appeared as a panel member on JoyNews’ Newsfile.

The Walewale MP explained what he believes to be one of the reasons for the perceptions that Parliamentarians are being overpaid:

“The problem is that the MPs, having lived with the problems of their constituents, try to live beyond what they can do, including going to borrow to take care of the people so there is that sense that they are rich. And when you see the problem and it confronts you every day, the President does not see it, no other arm of the government gets to see it. You are the one seeing the problem and in order for you to not let the problem consume the people, you have to find ways to fix that problem and the more you fix the problems, the more the impression is created on the minds of the people that he MP is rich.”

Dr. Kabiru gave further details of the challenges they, MPs face: “Look, the pressure the MP faces is more than that of the President. The President has national issues to solve, security issues and budgetary issues but even the President can say there is no budget for this project or that project but the MP cannot dare there is no budget for a, b and c. We live without a budget and you have to work for the people without a budget, I have said we must be bold as MPs and as Ghanaians to disclose some of these things so that we all know.

Speaking on the same show, the MP for Abura Asebu-Kwamankese and Minister of State in charge of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, said the calls that Ghanaian Parliamentarians should be made to use bicycles is an unfair one:

“I think that for many years, MPs have been unfairly criticized, simply because they are given the same tools that other public service holders get to do their work. In the past, I used to join those who used to harangue MPs but since becoming one, I have noticed that MPs are perhaps the most unfairly treated in the whole governance architecture.

“MPs, like everybody else within the three arms of government, provide a public service. They serve people. When you are elected as an MP, everything you do is in the interest of the people of Ghana. Ministers, we all agree, should be given some facilities in order to be able to do their work. The same for the judiciary but the moment it gets to MPs, a certain attack is launched on them”, he noted.

Felix Kwakye Ofosu continued: “Let me tell you up front, and I know it because I have experienced it, there is nothing that the MP gets for his own tenure that will come anywhere close to what the MP spends on the people that he serves.

“We have not opened up enough. People are even afraid to discuss what they earn for fear of public backlash. I can tell you for free, it is equivalent to what ministers earn and that’s it. Unlike ministers who have a duty-posed vehicle”, Kwakye Ofosu added.