Politicians Must Stop Promising �The Moon�- Prof Ocquaye

A political scientist and a former Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya constituency, Prof. Mike Ocquaye has advised that attention be given to the �hidden pressure� being mounted on the �heads� of politicians from their electorate as well as family members. He said it is worrying that people still vote for candidates based on what they will gain when that particular candidate gets the position. Prof. Mike Ocquaye was commenting on the stress being given to Member of Parliaments (MP) as well as politicians in �high and low� ranking positions as well as recent comments by Hon Victoria Hammah, Deputy Communications Minister. Victoria Hammah bemoaned that pressure is being mounted on her by some Ghanaians to �steal� from state coffers just to satisfy their parochial interest. She complained via a post on her facebook page that: �The public make unrealistic demands of money for funerals, support for Mphil programmes, monies for air fare ticket, hospital bills, capital for businesses, money for rent and even demand to induce [the] justice process�People even ask me to use official letter heads to influence processes for them�. Prof Ocquaye is of the view that the comment made by the Deputy Minister must be looked at in a holistic point of view because such demands lead to corruption among politicians. �What the lady (Victoria Hammah) said should not be swept under the carpet. It must be analysed again because it turns to pressurize people who are not too strong into doing some things. If you want the system to be sanitized, you have to examine some of these unnecessary but monumental demands�there are a lot of disgruntled people; no matter how you perform generally, they are only looking at the benefits that accrue to them personally�we should find ways and means of disengaging ourselves from this act� Mr Ocquaye told Richard Sky on Citi FM�s eye witness news. As a way of solving the issue, Prof. Ocquaye suggested that politicians should �stop promising the moon� whenever they are seeking for position and also educate their members (followers) that �it is not the responsibility of the politician to dish out money but they are to perform functions that are assigned to them by the constitution.�