This morning, the Member of Parliament for Kwesimintsim, Joseph Mensah, appeared on the radio to give those of us who gave him the seat he currently occupies, a rare privilege of hearing him account for his stewardship.

For four years, he has pointedly refused to provide any account, except to the increasingly small group of loyalists who surround him and prevent the rest of us from “disturbing” him with our concerns. So for him to even sit to answer questions about his service is a victory of a sort.

But it is not for nothing that he decided to spend his morning in the studios of an FM station. With a tough primary ahead and defeat all but certain, honourable suddenly has something to tell us. For us polling station executives, especially, whom he has until recently written off as unimportant, there is some perverse pleasure in watching him try to justify his tenure after avoiding us for nearly four years. Indeed, competition is good. Had it not been the tough primary challenge he is facing, who believes today he would be explaining himself? Or calling us back when we even flash him? Time changes.

It is important, however, to address some of the central points he made in his interview. For many of us in the party and the constituency, it comes as a shock to us whenever we hear the MP and his supporters tell us about him finding jobs for people. Maybe this is true for his innermost circle but for the rest of us, we have been left on our own, appealing to and getting help from others without the power of office.

As for his common fund projects, the least said about them the better. If we only needed our MP to undertake projects with state allocated funds, no MP in the country would ever be replaced because everyone does that. No, we need much more than that. We want to see some more innovation in addressing our problems. We want to see our MP direct investment into the constituency. We want to see our MP take advantage of government programmes such as one district; one factory to create jobs in Kwesimintsim. If it was common fund projects we wanted, we wouldn’t have asked someone to go so he could come.

In spite of all this, we are asked to believe that the best MP in the Western Region is ours? Well, we don’t know how these “media personnel” conducted their “research” but as they say, who feels it knows it. Those of us in the constituency, especially us delegates, don’t need someone to come and tell us how the food in our mouths tastes. We know what we have been through in the last four years and on 20th June, 2020, we shall also release the results of our “research”.