When The Media And The House Co-Operate

The leadership of the House of Parliament met the media in Accra on Monday, and asked for collaborative efforts between the Second Estate and the unofficial Fourth Estate of the Realm to move Parliamentary proceedings in the country forward. The Speaker of the House, Prof. Mike Aaron Oquaye, hit the nail right on the head […]

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The leadership of the House of Parliament met the media in Accra on Monday, and asked for collaborative efforts between the Second Estate and the unofficial Fourth Estate of the Realm to move Parliamentary proceedings in the country forward.

The Speaker of the House, Prof. Mike Aaron Oquaye, hit the nail right on the head by asking media practitioners to hold Parliamentarians accountable to the people who elected them to Parliament.

According to an official report from the House, the Speaker said journalists should not hesitate to prompt the House and its members, if members of the Fourth Estate notice conducts on the part of parliamentarians which fail to account to the people.

The Chronicle toasts to the health and wisdom of the Septugenarian who presides over the House with a pedigree of academic acumen and a reasonable experience as a parliamentarian himself, that the members ought to be accountable to the people.  That is the essence of parliamentary representation.

Invariably, in this society, constituents only get to hear and interact with their Members of Parliament only when the MPs have to return to the various 275 constituencies to fight elections.

We are delighted that the Right Honourable Speaker himself has weighed in on an issue that is fundamental to the representation of the people in the House, and which, unfortunately, has been so fragrantly abused by those who sit in the House on the strength of the people’s exercise of their democratic rights.

This pre-supposes that MPs have a duty to account for their representation to the people. In other words, members of Parliament have to frequent their constituencies and inform their constituents of the happenings in the House, and how their membership of the House was benefitting their various constituencies.

This supposes that members have to hold town hall meetings in their constituencies, and, as well as having offices where constituents could interact with their Members of Parliament.

The Chronicle notes with satisfaction the provision of offices for individual members at Parliament House in Accra. That is one giant leap in deepening our democratic dispensation, for which the Mahama administration should take a lot of pride. What this means is that constituents visiting their MPs in Accra could confer with them in their offices. We would like to believe that the state would empower MPs to construct offices in the regions to serve as their resource centres.

We are happy with the Speaker’s admonition to the media to scrutinise the activities of members of the House. What this means is that when journalists comment on members who only come to sit down without participating in debates, such members would not have to take offence.

In our view, when the media examines the quality of representation available to the House, it would help the individual members, and the House generally, to strengthen the House and fulfill the members’ obligations to the people of Ghana, while deepening democracy in this part of the world.

The Chronicle hopes that the encounter between the leadership of the House and the media would not become a one-day publicity stunt, and that the leadership would continue to engage the media in a collaborative effort to deepen democracy in Ghana.

We hope and pray that the media would continue to exhibit that high standard of journalism necessary to mirror proceedings in the House. Like in any profession, there is the good, the bad and the ugly. It is our hope that the good in media representation in the House would outweigh the bad and the ugly. Forward with the mutual trust between the House and the media!

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