PARLIAMENTARIANS MUST REMEMBER THAT ORDINARY GHANAINS ARE A FREE PEOPLE WHO WANT THE GOOD LIFE TOO!

It is amazing just how completely oblivious large sections of Ghana’s wealthy educated urban elites are, to the plight of our country’s burgeoning underclass – the members of which are powerless, voiceless, and mostly feel alienated from society. A typical example of this lack of appreciation of the yawning chasm that exists between the dispossessed in our country, and the relatively-prosperous educated urban elite, is the smugness of some members of parliament – and their unawareness of the fact that as a people we are sitting on a powder-keg of social inequality that could blow up at any time.

The Member of Parliament for the Manhyia constituency recently made a statement to the effect that certain criticisms of parliament by some members of the public, amounted to contempt of parliament. What do some of these highly-educated buffoons think of ordinary people, one wonders? What world do they inhabit? Do they not know that this is a poor developing nation in which hundreds of thousands of citizens die needlessly on a regular basis, because of their straightened personal circumstances in life – and for whose surviving family members the goings-on in parliament are worlds away and completely irrelevant: because life for them is nasty, brutish, and short?

Do those smug and asinine souls amongst our members of parliament, not realise that fifty-two years after gaining our independence, we have sadly ended up becoming a kleptocracy in which the quality of life of ordinary people has steadily deteriorated over the years – in inverse proportion to the fast pace at which the personal net worth of the politically well-connected and powerful oligarchs who control our kleptocracy ascends to stratospheric heights? Surprising though it might be to some of our parliamentarians, ordinary people are aware that our kleptocracy masquerades at various times, as a democracy, when, and as it finds, that ploy useful.

If the parliament of such a nation can act with such impunity that it can even sanction frauds, such as the passage into law of a bill sanctioning a sale and purchase agreement for VALCO, to a non-existent entity, grandly christened International Aluminum Partners, by the powerful rogues who dreamt it up, why should any patriotic Ghanaian not have a low opinion of those parliamentarians, who despite the strenuous public denials of two international metals conglomerates, Norske Hydro and VALE, that they had never agreed to purchase VALCO, still went ahead to pass that bill: because it was politically expedient to do so?

How come they indemnified all those who struck the deal that enabled Vodafone to take over Ghana Telecom (GT), from future prosecution for any acts of criminality arising from the takeover – in spite of the fact that our constitution enjoins all of us to fight corruption? Did they not know that insider-dealing was said to be rife amongst certain of the actors in that drama called “Rip-off in Accra” – and that in other jurisdictions that is sufficient to land even the most powerful of corporate Titans in jail for long stretches? Do they think that if the details of that deal were made available to transparency advocates, Global Witness, by the minister for communications, it would stand up to scrutiny – in terms of meeting EU and US corporate good governance standards?

Do they know that as we speak, far from benefiting from that takeover, some of G T’s “Broadband4U” customers living in McCarthy Hill, who used to be served by their Alvarion system, no longer have that internet service: and that despite several appeals to that arrogant company, Vodafone, nothing has been done about it to restore that service to them, although some of them are even owed money by GT that is sitting in their “Broadband4U” accounts? They can check my own account number 207888 – and ask GT precisely what interaction they have had with a very dissatisfied customer who has posted several complaints online about that atrocious “Vodafone Connect” product they have fobbed some of us off with.

Any parliament, such as the fourth parliament (many of whose members so clearly worshiped fervently at the cult-of-the-mediocre), which sanctions such outrages, most certainly neither deserve the huge ex-gratia payments awarded them, nor the respect of ordinary people – and if the present parliament wants to be respected, its members must show Ghanaians that they are true patriots who put the long-term interests of our nation, above their own parochial interests, and the short-term interests of their political parties. If members of parliament continue to shortchange ordinary people, they will continue to be treated with the contempt such unprincipled self-seeking at our nation’s expense, deserves.

Ordinary Ghanaians want sustainable and well-paid jobs; affordable good quality housing to rent; access to good education for their wards; an abundance of well-equipped healthcare facilities for those who need them; efficient, reliable and affordable broadband internet access for all; and above all, to live secure and fulfilled lives in a competently governed and disciplined nation, which isn’t being engulfed by filth and sundry rogues on government’s payroll – and they want parliament to play its oversight role properly, to ensure that that happens in due course.

They do not want parliamentarians to turn parliament into a theatre of the absurd – but to work hard to ensure that this is a nation that is governed effectively and honestly. One hopes that the Member of Parliament for Manhyia, and his haughty, small-minded, and mealy-mouthed friends, will always bear that in mind, when commenting on the way ordinary people react to the actions and utterances of some parliamentarians – ditto the fact that Ghanaians are a free people who live in a nation ruled by law: not a conquered and cowed society beholden to a political class that thinks it is above the law, because it makes laws. A word to the wise…