A member of Ghana’s delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament, Mahama Ayariga has said electing lawmakers to the Community Parliament is workable but there is no political will to do it.
According to him, resources have been budgeted to the Parliament, which when managed well can be used to achieve this but argued what is lacking is the political will and further added that elections are being held in the sub-region all the time, be it presidential, parliamentary or local government level elections.
“Infrastructure for holding the elections is there, the capacity to allocate and determine boundaries is also there,” he said.
Gradually the tenure of the current Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament is coming to an end, but a question that remains unanswered is whether the Rt. Hon Dr. Sidie Mohammed Tunis’ crusade of getting lawmakers elected would be achieved.
In a telephone interview with the Bawku Central lawmaker in his constituency, he pointed out that, heads of States the Parliament have gotten in touch with have pledged their support but when it comes to implementation, there is no real push by “the leadership of the Parliament because MPs seem to enjoy the current practice”, where member states MPs double as Community lawmakers.
He added that the new arrangement of electing lawmakers directly would mean one cannot belong to the state national assemblies at the same time in the ECOWAS Parliament, as most likely all the current MPs in the Parliament “may be swept out of the Parliament and definitely they do not want that”.
The Commission President and Heads of States have pledged their commitment, it’s for the current leadership of the parliament to take the step to create a new system which they are likely not to be part of and they are not just ready for that so the political will to push is there is non-existence,” he emphasized.
“Is for the heads of states to take this up and anyone can test this issue in the community court of justice”, he said in an interview on the subject matter.
