MPs are taking their work as a part-time job – Kofi Bentil

Dr. Bentil says more than half of MPs are working outside parliament for profit

Resign from parliament if you can’t do the job – Imani VP

I will ensure that MPs get authorisation before taking other positions – Speaker

Senior Vice President of IMANI Africa, Dr. Kofi Bentil, has said that a majority of Members of Parliament are taking their work as parliamentarians as part-time jobs.

In a JoyNews interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Dr. Bentil said that a lot of MPs are working privately at the expense of their work in parliament, contrary to the roles of the house.

“There are rules for parliament and indeed, the rule is that if you are a parliamentarian, it is a full-time job and if you want to do anything on the side, you need to get the permission of the Speaker to do.

“… we need to focus on this issue because our parliamentarians over the 4th Republic have elevated a footnote into a keynote, so more than half of parliamentary are doing work outside parliament for private profit … we meet a lot of them in court and they have treated the work of parliament as a part-time job,” he said.

“… that is wrong if you don’t want to do the job of a lawmaker, go and make laws, sit in Parliament to debate, then please don’t go to Parliament,” he added.

He further stated that MPs who absent themselves for more than 15 consecutive sittings without permission or any tangible reason should be made to relinquish their seat.

Meanwhile, Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, previously stated that a lot of MPs from ruling political parties have been bought by the Executive through positions they are offered in various government agencies which makes them ineffective in performing their duty of holding the Executive accountable.

Bagbin further stated that the Constitution states that for MPs to hold positions in government that are profiting, the Speaker of Parliament must authorize them but this has not been done over the years because of the influences of the president.

He indicated that he is not under any political pressure and he will ensure that no legislator gets appointed to any position both in government and private agencies without him certifying the person.