The MP believes no government will make any meaningful progress in the fight against corruption unless the current Presidential system is scrapped for the UK system of Prime Minister-ship with a strong independent Parliament.
Hon. Kyei Mensah is the second to have made this suggestion publicly. In September 2010, Citifmonline published a report in which renowned business magnate and CEO of Antrak Air, Alhaji Asuma Banda, made a similar suggestion to curb what he sees as the ingrained culture of corruption at the Presidency and within the Executive arm of Government.
Alhaji Banda said the enormous power given to a President by the Constitution greatly fuels corruption, adding that the Presidency had become so attractive to most politicians because of the level of corruption that can be perpetuated while in power.
Hon. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu says a compressive review of the 1992 Constitution to allow for a purely parliamentary system of governance modeled along the lines of the Westminster system will be a solid remedy for corruption.
“There is an empirical study by the World Bank which suggests that in emerging economies particularly in unitary states, those of them who opt for presidential systems are more corruptible than the Westminster system.
The reason is that there is struggle for elections. A President has the entire country as his constituency and so many things go into that…
“The President has the entire country as his constituency and look at the T-shirts and the billboards that are made for him. Who bears the cost? Yet they have to be there.
I spent 30 million old cedis in making just two giant billboards in my Constituency. President Mills had six billboards in my Constituency alone and Akufo-Addo had about three or four, and they were perhaps more expensive because they were made of metal” he noted.
The MP admitted that such funds obviously come from private entrepreneurs who expect to be rewarded with government contracts once that politician assumes power thereby giving room for corruption.
“Nobody is a ‘Father Christmas’ so those who sponsored them have to be compensated in one way or the other and contracts are awarded, corners are cut and people line their pockets.
For instance in 2008, a 6-Unit classroom block for basic schools cost Gh¢85, 000 so how is it that overnight, into 2009, the price of a six unit classroom block has shot up to about 2.6 Billion old Ghana Cedis. What has happened to this country? Certainly, there are price rises and inflation but even if you combine this, should it come anywhere near two billion? That’s what we have to live with.
“And who is saying which regime was more corrupt? I don’t want to hear about that but it is something that is afflicting us and we have to look at it as a nation”.
“People have to reap and President Mills will not dip his hands into the national kitty to reward people who sponsored him and Akufo-Addo would not have done the same but certainly these are the areas. Parliament which should be doing due diligence to work on these things, shies away from them because they become political.
“That’s why I believe that if we encourage professionals or career members of Parliament other than what we are doing now, we strengthen Parliament”.
“If we were doing a complete overhaul, I will opt for a Westminster system. It is not for nothing that in a Westminster system before a person becomes a Minister, he has perhaps shadowed somebody for at least four years, eight years or twelve years in that sector.
In those countries, when a Minister is summoned before a committee of Parliament, he comes with his knees knocking against each other because he knows that the Shadow Minister knows more than he knows. But here, a Minister comes and he is calling your bluff and his own colleagues are hailing him.
How do you move the anti-corruption agenda forward when his own people know that what he is doing is bad and yet they hail him?” he asked.
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