The Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak, Tuesday, stormed Parliament on a bicycle in protest of hikes in fuel prices and the economic hardship under President Akufo-Addo government.
Mubarak who is a member of the Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) Caucus on Monday promised to embark on a 17km ride on his bicycle from his residence in Ashaley Botwe to the Parliament of Ghana.
“This is a way of sending a signal to government to highlight the plight of the voiceless Ghanaians who are unable to express their frustrations either because they have had to go to work or engage in other activity or the other. As a representative of the people aside legislation, we need to be seen to be voicing out issues that affect the ordinary Ghanaian and for me it is a way to generate attention not to myself but to rise in the cost of living in the country”, he said.
He told journalists that it was important as a representative of the people to tell the government the plight of the people.
He said so many of his colleague MPs are acquiring some bicycles to embark on a similar exercise.
However, his mission has attracted some criticisms from the MP for Yunyoo, Joseph Bipoba Naa, who is also a member of the NDC Caucus.
According to the vociferous Yunyoo MP, he is finding it very difficult to believe why Ras Mubarak who owns a V8 Toyota Landcruiser will complain of finding it very difficult buy fuel and suddenly decides to embark on a 17km journey from his house to the lawmaking house.
In his view, the Kumbugu MP just wants cheap popularity, stressing that President Akufo-Addo has no control over fuel prices.
“Ras Mubarak, a Member of Parliament and my colleague on the NDC side – it is unfortunate for him to say he will do that. The situation we find ourselves in Ghana today, I don’t understand why a Member of Parliament will say that life is hard therefore he is using a bicycle to Parliament. He’s been given V8. You see, we should not be politicizing our economic situation in a vacuum. We shouldn’t just be criticizing because we are in opposition and so we should criticize. We should criticize constructively. We should give a very good reason for criticizing so that people who are with us – those people who voted us to power will know that the action and or inaction of the Member of Parliament is in the right direction. But if Ras Mubarak is saying that the economy is so hard that
he is using a bicycle to come to Parliament, it is a cheap popularity that he wants to take and Ghanaians should discard it”, he noted in an interview with kasapafmonline.com.
