Member of Parliament (MP) for South Dayi, Rockson Dafeamekpor says legislators in the country have very little opportunities to be corrupt.

According to him, lawmakers spend a chunk of their time analysing and processing documents and have no time to engage in corrupt acts. 

“Parliament as an institution is not corrupt. We spend hours unending, pouring over voluminous documents, trying to make sure the details and mathematics add up and approve them so that government can go ahead with its business.

“How do we get corrupt when we are doing this every day?” he asked on Joy News’ Pm Express programme on Wednesday.  

An Afrobarometer study published on Tuesday revealed that Ghanaians perceived an increase in corruption level, giving government low marks on fighting graft.

The survey also showed that most Ghanaians perceived at least “some” corruption in key public institutions, including the police, judges and magistrates, MPs, Civil Servants, and tax officials. This made Parliament the third most corrupt public institution in Ghana.

Mr Dafeamekpor argued that Parliament is a twin institution consisting of MPs and Members of the Parliamentary Service who are Civil Servants so it will be unfair to single out only MPs to garner opinions and generalise the results as the whole institution.

“I am an MP in the Minority party, I am in my third year and I am struggling to even appreciate the semblance of having been corrupt. I have never gotten the opportunity to encounter such a thing.”

The Legislator further added that the results of the study could be misleading since the focus of the study was broad and not narrow enough to acquire more meaningful and realistic results.

“They gauged the trust levels of the NPP [New Patriotic Party] and then lumped that of the NDC [National Democratic Congress] together with the over 15 other existing minority parties we have in the country. When you do that, you give folder for others to feed on,” he stressed.

Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) Research Analyst, Newton Norviewu speaking on the show also said, the survey is to give citizens the voice and to prompt policymakers of the perception the citizens have about their acts. 

Afrobarometer is a pan-African, nonpartisan research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, economic conditions, and related issues across Africa.

Seven rounds of surveys were completed in up to 38 countries between 1999 and 2018. Round 8 surveys are planned in at least 35 countries in 2019/2020. Afrobarometer conducts face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice with nationally representative samples.

The Afrobarometer team in Ghana, led by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), interviewed 2,400 adult Ghanaians between 16 September and 3 October 2019. A sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Previous surveys were conducted in Ghana in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2017.