Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor, has described as violent government’s reaction to the post-election research conducted by CDD-Ghana.
According to him, such reactions are to be expected from the incumbent government who gets riled up when things don’t go its way.
Mr Dafeamekpor further explained that the NDC on the other hand are more receptive to the findings from CDD-Ghana as they have exhibited in the past.
“It’s interesting reading the report. And what makes it more interesting, is government’s reaction to some outcome of the report and how government is reacting violently to these findings. We can expect that from the NPP when they don’t find things favorable to them.
“We have always accepted CDD findings and we use them to better our political strategy and approach. So, that’s the difference. We never discount nor discredit their findings; we use it to better strategy”.
Mr Rockson Dafeamekpor
Elaborating on the violent reactions he deems the government displayed, Mr Dafeamekpor cited words like “concoction, WhatsApp, social media attack [and] all sorts of adjectives”.
Additionally, he explained that the “report has made some interesting findings”. Based on this, Mr Dafeamekpor insisted that some are “very revealing”.
“But in a nutshell, it tells you how increasingly sophisticated Ghanaians have become, especially those within the vote bracket”.
Mr Rockson Dafeamekpor
Impact of 8th composition of parliament
Per the survey undertaken, some respondents expect the current composition of parliament to impact on some parliamentary practices.
Reacting to this, the South Dayi legislator considered the question posed by CDD to that respect as “nebulous”. By this, he revealed that the “compositions of parliament have always impacted on its work”.
“So, I was hoping they would have put the question in the converse, as to whether or not the current composition will adversely or positively impact the work of government.
Mr Rockson Dafeamekpor
He further explained that a clearer question would have elicited a more “responsive” answer from the respondents.
“Indeed, bills have always been properly scrutinized even when we had lower numbers in the 7th parliament. It is the processes that we take bills through [and] passing them to law is a technical process. When a particular phrase in a bill is wrong and the House thinks that this cannot be allowed to pass into a law, it is amended. We tidy up bills all the time. In the 7th parliament, even though, we had lower numbers… that parliament passed more bills than any other parliament in the history of this country.
Mr Rockson Dafeamekpor
Scrutiny of government’s appointees
Touching on minority’s reaction to parliamentary approval of ministerial appointees, Mr Dafeamekpor disclosed that “better scrutiny” does not necessarily result in an appointee’s approval.
According to him, any person who approves an inefficient nominee must bear the consequence of his actions.
“We scrutinized Agyemang Manu during his vetting. We asked him issues and his role in a lot of the things that happened under the first term of the President.
“Today, Agyemang Manu has run himself into problems. If we had rejected Agyemang Manu, I don’t think the problems that he’s had as a government appointee he would have witnessed it…
“So, it is good that if you send me a material for me to scrutinise for purposes of approval for the person to function in a portfolio, I should be able to point out the weaknesses of the nominee. So, it is up to you… to make a decision as to whether you go ahead to still confirm the person or you replace the person because of the weaknesses”.
Mr Rockson Dafeamekpor
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