Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament Dominic Nitiwul has advised aspiring MPs to consign to the bin any notions of making money from the House because the reality is shockingly depressing.

In a Joy FM Super Morning Show Tuesday discussion that left listeners in disbelief, he explained that out of an MP’s GH₵7,200 salary, about GH₵3,000 or more, is used to service a loan MPs took to buy vehicles for their official work.

Parliament arranged that loan with SG-SSB pegged at an interest rate of 22%, he revealed. In his situation, he spends GH₵3,400 every month to “pay the cost of my car to do my work”.

The politician went on to say that an MP who spends less than GH₵1,000 monthly on fuel is not serious about his or her parliamentary work. As Bimbilla MP he sheds GH₵1,200 of his earnings on a trip to his constituency and back, he said.

Life for majority of MPs, he said, is “tough”.

Dominic Nitiwul who entered parliament at a historic tender age of 25 years in 2002 joined a Joy FM discussion along with Deputy Head of Joy FM political desk Malik Abass Daabu. A third panelist, Esther Addei is President of the Student's Council at Ashesi University College, a private university.

Esther Addei [left], Dominic Nitiwul [center] Malik Daabu [right]

The discussion centered on how student politicians secure funding for their campaigns. Many student politicians are reported to rely on politicians to fund their campaigns for positions at the student level. Esther Addei ruled out political funding for electoral campaigns in Ashesi and said her parents helped her raise the money for her campaign chest.

Malik Daabu stressed that the practice is pervasive. Becoming National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) president is profitable for students who have a mind for money from self-seeking politics.

A NUGS president can get a free car, visas, if he wants to do the bidding of government or help out the opposition’s efforts in creating popular discontent, he said.

Dominic Nitiwul partly confirmed Malik Daabu’s analysis and explained that it is in the interest of political parties to neutralize each other’s influence in students' unions across the county.

The discussion dovetailed into the perception that politics is a money-making machine. Delving into his background and experience as an MP, Dominic Nitiwul painted a depressing picture.

Dominic Nitiwul debating in parliament

An aspiring politician who views parliament as a ‘cashcow’ is badly in need of somebody to help him “wake up from that dream”.

“If you are a Member of Parliament and you lose an election or you don't run for an election, you wake up and you don't have even GH₵1 coming in from anywhere so if you have no other sources of income, then you are finished”.

“If people think they are coming to parliament to make money, they are coming to spend the little that they have,” he stressed.

In view of the expenses serving as a huge drain on an MP’s salary, he said MPs are going into entrepreneurship.

It is one of the ways of ensuring that MPs going out of Palriament do not not leave in penury. With great reluctance, Nitiwul revealed he is into transport business.

“Everybody knows that,” he said. But due to the huge constraint he faces as an MP, his business is managed by trustworthy associates.

As a Management Consultant by training, he explained that he also provides his services to businesses.

Despite the financial difficulties MPs find themselves, Dominic Nitiwul says his satisfaction from being an MP comes from the public recognition he gets from the position.

When he goes to public functions, sometimes a total stranger can offer him his chair, he said.

“I don’t know whether Hon Nitiwul is telling us the truth,” some callers found the bleak financial picture painted of MPs hard to take.