Executive Director for African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr. Rasheed Draman has urged the government to set up institutional measures to serve as a check against any form of scandal that can likely affect the image of Ghana’s parliament.
The British High Commission has revealed that four MPs are allegedly perpetrating visa fraud using their diplomatic passports.
According to a statement signed by the Jon Benjamin, British High Commissioner to Ghana the MPs used their diplomatic passports to apply for visas for persons travelling to the UK and they never returned.
“The British High Commission considers the actions completely unacceptable. In some cases these behaviors may arguably be criminal in nature…,” the British High Commission noted.
It is in this line that Dr Draman immensely urged the government to formulate procedures to guard the reputation of the parliament against any stain, be it perception or real.
“Leadership would have to sit up and institute measures to ensure that anything that are scandal, whether perception or real, is far away from parliament…” he stressed on Neat FM.
He cited an instance in the United Kingdom where the House of Commons met to educate their members against all forms of scandal gestures ahead of their campaign activities to prevent any misinformation in the public domain backed by records.
“I was at the House of Commons this week and there was a meeting to educate members against all forms of scandal gestures. If you have staff to do work for campaign aside some work they are been paid for they have to make sure they keep records so that if any journalist or the public domain picks up it doesn’t become a scandal…”
He, however, added that, “This is a measure most of the parliaments around the world put in place to check those things…”