The Member of Parliament for the Navrongo Central Constituency, Hon. Samson Tangombu has taken a swipe at the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), accusing them of deliberately denying Members of Parliament of the the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) developmental projects in other to make them unpopular among their constituents.
Hon. Samson said with the change of dynamics in parliament with regards to the almost equal number of parliamentarians for both sides of the political divide which has made it difficult for government to always have their way, the NPP government has now resorted to denying them projects so that they can take the seats from the NDC in the next election.
” Things are charging. Those days that the government in power normally had an absolute majority, they did things the way they wanted. You in the minority don’t have a say. We had our say and they had their way. Then probably you lobby and they say let’s do it for them it doesn’t matter .This time it is 50:50. They don’t want the truth. We have 137:137 in parliament. Things are not easy for us. So they are bent on making us more unpopular so that they can take more seats from us. So anything from the NDC is bad.”
The Honourable Member of Parliament added that the government has decided not to grant any project request by he and some NDC MPs who are hard on the government.
” Most times when we disagree with them, then they think that they have the majority, they will just be looking for one person to come and add or they use the speaker or the presiding member to vote. So even lobbying is not easy.”
The law maker disclosed that the government has closed its doors to NDC MPs and refused even give them recruitment allocations to recruit their constituents into the security services.
” The recruitment, Adongo would have told you or you ask him again, did they give him even one single person? If you go and lobby, they won’t give you and if they give you, they will say Adongo came here or Samson Came here just to disgrace you.”
” It is probably if the man is your friend and you meet someone like the sports minister and you say oh we all come from the North, do you have some balls for me?then he will say oh send your boys then he give you some five balls. But to go and lobby for a bigger project, you talk to him on the floor of Parliament like when I took them on the Naaga road, the Minister told me that they are on it. I had to beg and say “Minister can you just give something small for the contractor? Even Gh2m for the to work on the road.”
“These particular group of people we have as NPP are not prepared to help us with even one single person. They don’t help so don’t waste your time and even if they help the whole world will hear that they have given you this. It means that you have compromised and if the NDC also hear that Samson has been give a fuel coupon of Gh1000.00 ,you can imagine what they will do to me.”
The Member of Parliament responded in the negative when the host of the Community Watch Show on Word FM, Simon Agana asked him if he has successfully lobbied and gotten a single project from government since he went to Parliament.
” No I have not even gone to any body. The only time I lobbied was when I went and spoke to the Minister to work on my road and the man didn’t even do it so its still lying there. The Naaga Kologo road.”
Hon. Samson Tangombu Chiragea was speaking to Mr. Simon Agana on the Friday edition of the Community Watch Show on Word FM on his achievement as a member of Parliament for the Navrongo Constituency.
Hon. Samson said though he has done a lot for his constituents including sponsoring two students to pursue medicine, construction of school library, renovation of dilapidated schools, providing scholarship to 232 students, drilling of boreholes, facilitated the construction of dress making centre among others, he has not delivered to his own expectation. He however attributed his performance to the bad attitude of government towards Members of Parliament on the NDC side and the failure of government to complete some ongoing projects like the Youth Resource Centre and the Naaga Kologo road in his constituency.
By: Simon Agana/mywordfmonline.com