MPs In Blame Game Syndrome

Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur on Wednesday could not attend upon Parliament to answer questions from Members of the House forcing the legislators to begin apportioning blame. Due to the Minister's inability to attend upon the House and her Deputy's inability to also answer a question and further request for more time, members of the minority began to blame the majority for not ensuring that ministers appear before the House. Member of Parliament (MP) for Okaikoi Central, Patrick Boamah, who sat in for the leaders of the minority side, said Parliament was under siege and ought to behave well to redeem its image. Mr. Boamah said MPs ought to be seen doing a better job on the floor of the House to help reduce the negative perception of the public towards the legislators. But, Majority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka rejected the blame and said after programming the ministers to respond to questions, letters are sent to the ministers with several phone calls to them as reminders hence it was misleading to blame the majority side for any minister's absence. The Majority Chief Whip said they take the concerns seriously but the blame ought not to have been directed to them but rather the Ministers of State who fail to appear before the House to respond to the various questions. Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho later directed the leaders of the House to communicate with the various ministers to help avoid such failures. Mr. Adjaho noted that all the ministers have deputies who could assist the ministers to execute their duties; hence there was no reason not to appear before the House to answer questions on the floor of the House. Mrs Lithur was on Wednesday billed to answer a question from the MP for Oforikrom, Elizabeth Agyeman on what measures the ministry is putting in place to solve the problems of the numerous �kayayei� in various markets and on the streets. Ms. Agyeman said the question had been pending for far too long hence she could not understand why the ministry is taking so long to respond to the question. But, the Minister was out of the country and her deputy Dela Sowah was present in an attempt to answer the question but Deputy Majority Leader, Alfred Agbesi told the House that the minister wanted to request for more time to get the appropriate answer for the question.