Conflict of interest: MPs must cease membership of boards- Legal Practitioner

A private Legal Practitioner and lecturer at the University of Ghana Law school, Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee is advocating the discontinuance of the practice where MPs are allowed to hold membership of private and public boards.

According to her, this situation constitutes a conflict of interest on the part of MPs and an affront to Article 98(2) of the Constitution, 1992.

It states that;

“A member of Parliament shall not hold any office of profit or emolument, whether private or public and either directly or indirectly unless permitted to do so by the Speaker acting on the recommendations of a committee of Parliament on the grounds that-

 a. holding that office will not prejudice the work of a member of Parliament; and

 b. no conflict of interest arises-or would arise as a result of the member holding that office.”

“If you read article 98(2) of our constitution, it is very clear what the law wants parliament to do… It is very clear that the Office of Board Member is a public office and does apply to private offices too and it does have emoluments because if you look at the enabling Act of all state enterprises, it usually provides for emoluments that the board may take and these are usually approved by the Finance Minister or the Finance Minister in consultation with other councils. So these are offices of emoluments. The question then is; will it prejudice the work of Parliament? And is there a conflict of interest? Absolutely,” she noted.

Speaking on Newsfile on JoyNews on Saturday, January 15, 2022, the Law lecturer further noted that because Parliament has to hold accountable state-owned enterprises relative to its approval of their budgets, MPs should not have a financial interest in them directly or otherwise.

“because we know that parliament is supposed to hold accountable state-owned enterprises approving their budgets and all that If we go to the constitutional provision relating to conflict of interest, it is clear that an MP should not have a financial interest whether direct or indirect. In this case, they do have financial interests in the budget that are being passed because there will be emoluments due to them,”

She, therefore, called on the Speaker of Parliament to swiftly act in enforcing Article 98(2) of the Constitution, 1992.

“I think this is the opportune time for the Speaker of Parliament to act on this and enforce article 98(2) of the constitution so that MPs seize to hold membership in boards,”