Former Builsa North MP Timothy Ataboadey Awontirim has stated some reasons why there is a need for politicians to vie for parliamentary positions even in old age.

According to him, people gain more experience about happenings in life as they grow. Therefore, he believes older politicians are a better fit to represent their constituents at that stage.

The former MP who spoke to Asieduwaa Akumia on Joy Prime’s Prime Morning explained that some behaviours and understandings of life are mostly learned as individuals grow.

“As we grow older, we become much more mature in the political game, and we feel that we can represent the people better at that age than when you’re quite young. There’s so much exuberance and radicalism in the way you do things.

"You need to carry the people along in terms of policy and in terms of your own vision and objectives for the constituency that you represent.

"These ingredients are often lost in terms of your age and experience in politics, and even more generally, about how to handle people.”

“So as we age further into our ages, we feel that people are better represented at that age,” Mr Awontirim asserted.

He also mentioned that politics has become expensive due to the financial and entry requirements for interested constituency contestants.

Adding his opinion to the conversation, Kwesi Botchwey Junior, a communications team member of the New Patriotic Party, also raised some concerns about the increasing cost of participating in politics.

He indicated that politics is gradually becoming a game for the rich rather than competency, hard work, creativity and potential.

“I agree with honourable Timothy Awontirim on the score that now, when you want to win an internal election, you need a lot of money, and that is a major concern to me because if politicians don’t take care, it will get to a time when we’ll find people with illicit wealth taking over our political space. We’ll find fraudsters taking over our parliamentary seats, so we have to be mindful,” he said.

The NPP communicator recommended that the expertise and capabilities of the candidates be prioritised over the monetary status of the individuals.

That notwithstanding, Mr Botchwey also proposed a wider conversation about the ‘moneycracy’ in Ghana’s political sector, as he thinks “it is gradually eating up the politics we’re doing."