When the Speaker of Parliament directed all parliamentarians to be tested for the coronavirus, he added a restrictive statement that “the results of the MPs will not be made public”.
This generated a lot of buzz among the population. But as usual, it died as every critical issue is shoved into the grave without much deliberation in this country. On 26th May 2020, Parliament through the head of its Public Affairs, Kate Addo came out to describe a media report as “untrue” and urged Starrfmonline to “withdraw” the news article. The report suggested that 2 members of Parliament and 13 staff of the House have tested positive for Covid-19.
The MP for Suame who doubles as the Majority leader described the report as “speculative journalism.”
Regardless of the stands taken by these two heavyweights in the country’s Parliament, the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, on 27th May 2020 came out to support the media report which was refuted by the Parliament.
It must be pointed out without any ambiguity, that Parliamentarians are elected to serve the people! This fact, neglected and turned into rhetoric, only finds its way into the minds of most of our representatives when elections are due.
Unfortunately, it is uncalled for, for anyone in this noble practise to dabble in conjectures. The comments of Mr Muntaka cannot be verified at the moment since none of the MPs who tested positive for the virus has made their results public.
However, even though the Majority Leader describes the report as speculative, he misses the point halfway. Parliamentarians, as leaders, owe us a moral obligation to let us know their status.
More importantly, stigmatization of Covid-19 survivors is thwarting the efforts of government on many fronts. For this reason, if the people get to know that even their MPs are not immune to the virus, then a lot more people will realise that there is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone having the virus.
The outbreak of this pandemic is fraught with public implications, so anyone who holds a public office has no excuse of not telling the country his or her status.
At least, for the “mere” reason of letting some of our people who still believe this disruptive virus is non-existent, knowing that an MP, of all people, in the Ghanaian context, has contracted the disease will alert them as to the ramifications of not following the rules laid down by the government to help curb this virus.
That is not the only reason why our MPs must disclose their results to us. The mere fact that our society is undergirded by a so-called democratic Constitution, makes it imperative that our MPs respect the intelligence and dignity of the Ghanaian populace.
Globally, the status of public officials is not in a minute shadowed from the public. They are used as a lighthouse for those populations.
The British, whom our governance system most especially, the judicial system kowtows to, have been outright with infections regarding their public officials. No mean person as the Prime Minister of Britain was not long ago diagnosed and reported having the virus; he survived.
Prince Charles, who is first in line to the British throne displayed symptoms in late March; he survived. The Health Minister, Nadine Dories also tested positive; she survived. Matt Hancock, the British health secretary also tested positive; he survived and described the virus as “rough, especially when you are on the downhill part of it– it’s very worrying because we’ve all seen how serious it can get.”
I doubt if all of the Ghanaian population realizes the seriousness of the virus. I doubt.
When Dominic Cummings, Chief Adviser to Boris Johnson drove his family 400 kilometres to his parents’ house, for the fear of infecting his child with the virus, Britons had no idea a key member of the ruling class had disregarded the rules laid down to help them fight the virus.
The moment the Guardian newspaper revealed this act, the entire nation erupted with a groundswell against Johnson’s government. More so because Mr Johnson in a broadcast justified the actions of his adviser. Now his popularity ratings are in the negative.
I just used Britain because of how most of our politicians like to be affiliated with the Crown. We must follow them in our deeds too.
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Similarly, in the United States, there have been disclosures by members of the Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives respectively. Some lawmakers in the Senate who have tested positive for the coronavirus include; Senator Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and several others who have been or are on quarantine. With regards to the House of Representative, Nydia Velazquez, Paul Gosar, Julia Brownley, and Doug Collins have all tested positive among 30 other representatives. Unfortunately, one state representative of South Dakota, Bob Glanzer’s life has been snuffed as a result of the virus. He was 74.
The average age in the US’s Senate was 61.8 years at the beginning of the current Congress’, according to Forbes. As the coronavirus proofs more insidious to person’s with pre-existing conditions, one would have thought those who are more exposed fatally to the virus will be more reluctant in sharing their status. In this case, much older people.
The average age of Ghana’s Parliamentarians, according to citinewsroom.com is 48.2 years. This shows a fairly young Parliamentarian population and one will wonder why a group who are less prone to fatally suffer from the virus will not be forthcoming.
Canada, Iran, Germany, Zambia amongst other countries have all published the names of ministers or other public officials who have tested positive for the coronavirus.
That shows how these societies demand transparency, which makes their political class have no choice but to think about the people. I doubt if the same can be said of our emerging democracy. If we are to make progress, it is doubtless we need transparency.
Based on that mere word, “transparency”, the blood of military generals have been shed in this country. Are we going to cover ourselves in the dark and prevent doubting Thomases from following laid down procedures? How will that augur well for our so-called fight?
Our Parliamentarians may not owe us any legal obligation to make public their statuses. However, such an action depicts leading by example as it will put their constituents on edge as to the reality of the virus’ indiscriminate taste.
Since many foreign public officials mentioned here fought and defeated the virus, I don’t doubt our MPs will also survive it. They have the resources. But does the ordinary Ghanaian have that same capacity? If they did, some would not have tried to break out of quarantine.
Our parliamentarians must realize that it is their duty to ensure that our interests are served first before any corporate or political interest. With that in mind, they must make public their statuses; whether positive or negative as their colleagues in other parts of the world have done. After all, our democratic experiment is by and large emulating those of the US and Britain.
Most importantly, our Parliamentarians must realize that it is a privilege to be tested; many citizens have this virus but may never be tested because of inadequate test kits.
Ghanaian lawmakers, thus, owe the people the duty to disclose their statuses as it can go a long way to make people more aware and these can reduce the number of cases.
source: citinews
