Chief Director at the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Dr. Evans Aggrey Darko says government’s decision to construct constituency offices worth over GH₵ 178 million for all its 275 Parliamentarians is a step in the right direction.

In so doing, he says Parliamentarians will be brought closer to their constituents and constituencies to ensure effective and quality representation on the floor of Parliament.

Speaking to JoyNews’ Evans Mensah, the Director explained that politics is “local and people-centered” and one way of ensuring that every constituent is in sync and can interface with their MP is by bringing both parties together to leverage their knowledge.

“By enhancing the quality of representation, one of the critical things that you need to do is to provide them with an address, a place where people can effectively interface.

“The people will see the MP as also helping them access other public bureaucracies within the system. So when you give them such an opportunity, trust me, that is where you see their real value,” he said.

Mr Darko was also optimistic that, bringing leaders and their constituents together will set a standard whereby legislators can be accessed on the “quality of delivery” at the end of their tenure based on information available to them.

Meanwhile, the Executive Director for Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr Rashid Dramani has also expressed support for the government’s plans to build constituency offices.

In his view, it is long overdue for Members of Parliament to have access to their own offices within their constituencies because their absence, he says, weakens their ability to effectively represent their people.

“The legitimacy of any Parliament and its members rest on the central claim that they give meaning to political representation in society. Over the years, the weakest link if you ask me is the issue of representation.

“I think this whole idea of constituency offices for Members of Parliament should have been dealt with right from the very first day when we started this 4th Republic,” he stressed.