Politics of Friday, 5 July 2013

Source: XYZ

Code of conduct for MPs not necessary – Freddie Blay

Former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Freddie Blay has described as unnecessary, Parliament’s move to prescribe a code of Conduct for MPs.

The move follows recent media reports that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee wrote to local ICT firm, rlg, seeking sponsorship for a trip to be undertaken by some members of the Committee.

Freddie Blay, however, argues that there are already structures within Parliament in dealing with issues which border on conflict of interest amongst others and so questions the basis of the proposed code of conduct.

He quizzed: "What I don’t get is what people are proposing, are they not happy with the Parliamentarians are proposing? Is there any specific problem that has arisen for which Parliament is supposed to set up a committee to set up rules so that it could take care of the problem?.

"I don’t see what has happened that calls for a new set of rules or a committee to investigate Parliamentarians and tell them how to behave," Hon. Blay said.