Truant MPs a big let down

| Wednesday March 21, 2007 00:00

We have further been informed that Standing Orders do not compel MPs to attend the debates as a precondition for accessing the lucrative sitting allowance.  Some MPs in fact just go to Parliament to show their faces, before disappearing and the sitting allowance will be the same as that of the colleague who spent the whole day attending debates.  This is not only a raw deal to the electorate who voted such MPs to the House to represent them, but it is also theft of the taxpayers' money and shows a serious lack of commitment to productivity by such legislators and their cabinet counterparts.  It also demonstrates that some of our MPs do not respect their electors.

How can men and women, on whom the nation has bestowed so much power and trust, treat us like this?  How do they expect the civil service to be productive when they behave worse than school children?  Low productivity and poor service delivery are on everyone's lips these days. But sadly, instead of being exemplary by working hard, some of our MPs have joined the army of vocal but unproductive public officers. We want to put it to you that your behaviour reflects poorly on the country's image - lawmakers who can't obey their own laws of the game.  What a shame! 

We want to warn you that if you continue treating our Parliament like a hall of circus, we would in return treat you like clowns.  From today onwards, we, as a newspaper, will be monitoring your attendance to the House debates and the nation will use the register against you in future. We are going to publish the names of truant MPs and ministers during the campaign for the 2009 general elections. In addition, we are going to keep a register of contributions each MP makes in form of questions, debate and tabling of motions. Our parliamentarians must behave like Batsadi and not like school kids. Really some of them do not deserve to be in that august House and come 2009, they will definitely pay for their dishonourable behaviour.

                                    Today's Thought
                It's not a blame game. It's accountability! It's accountability!

                                 - Terry Moran