Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker, with a heavy heart, I rise to contribute to the eulogy of this great Member of Parliament and former Colleague. By every standard, I believe that he had contributed his quota to the development of this country.
Mr Speaker, I had a great privilege of meeting Hon J. H. Mensah in Parliament while he was doing his last term in this House. That was when I was also doing my first term in Parliament. If I would summarise what I made of him, I would say that he was a very great debater, courageous and diligent person.
Nevertheless, I would also add that he moved on to mentor a lot of people. One that I know very well, that if you see how he works then you remember Hon J. H. Mensah, is no other person than the Hon Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Hon Majority Leader. If you see the way the Hon Majority Leader works, especially when it comes to the consideration of Bills and law making, it makes one directly remember the Hon J. H. Mensah.
Mr Speaker, I must admit; between the time some of us came here and now, whether the blame should be put on those of us who have the great privilege of being in leadership today or it is the system we are running, every one of us today in this chamber would admit that the quality of debate has gone down drastically.
Yes, it is very bad. Mr Speaker, I believe it is because people do not research enough. People are not given enough time and they are rushed to end their contributions.
Mr Speaker, there was a time that the Hon J. H. Mensah was speaking. At the time, we did not have offices and we used to eat somewhere around the head office of the ARB Apex Bank. We left the
Chamber, went to order the food, sat there and ate the food; came back and he was still on his feet. I dare say that today, there is no way one would be tolerated that much.
Mr Speaker, when he enters the Chamber and you see the reference materials around him, even with all the knowledge that he had you would marvel.
Mr Speaker, today, an Hon Member would get up to contribute, and he or she is given three minutes to talk. How can any other person in the Chamber as a first timer learn from the experienced ones?
This was the time that when Hon J. H. Mensah was speaking, one would be copiously jotting down some of the things that he was saying. This is because, even when a person disagrees with him, you would respect and believe what he was saying made a lot of sense.
Today, is it the way our parties conduct ourselves in our various constituencies or is it the so much monetisation of our political parties that makes many of us in the Chamber not find time to even sit up to two hours in the Chamber? People come in, just sit briefly and walk out again.
Virtually, they do not learn anything. But this is the biggest university that one would attend because the archaeology to zoology of this country runs through this House. By just sitting in this House and listening to things that happen here means that one would learn greatly.
Many of us who have learnt to sit in the Chamber learnt it from those times because you would come and see the senior colleagues glued to their seats, with debate ongoing and you would hear constructive argument. Even when a person disagreed, it was done so decently.
Today, with the greatest of respect, we have turned the Chamber into a place where we do petty politicking to the extent that we are virtually leaving national interest aside.
Mr Speaker, it was through the effort of the Hon J. H. Mensah that the Minority begun to shape how they conducted themselves in the Chamber; the kind of courage and force that they had to put to challenge the Majority. It was through the leadership of the Hon J. H. Mensah that the Minority had this boldness.
This is because, until then, our country had even forgotten how our last Parliament was behaving. But when he came in, in the year 1997 and led the Minority, he had the effort of going to the court where things were not very clear. In fact, he believed in going to the court for settlement.
Today, we virtually resort to shouting and pushing to get things settled. At least, when it happens again, we would all say that when it happened, this was how it was resolved. Now, we have turned it into saying, ‘‘when you were here, you did it and when we were there, we did it.” We are not really moving our democracy to where it should go.
Mr Speaker, I must admit that Hon J. H. Mensah was really an illustrious son of this country.
Mr Speaker, on our recent trip as Leadership, I kept reminding the two leaders, of the Minority and Majority, that we need to take steps to start naming very prominent Members of Parliament and people who have served this House with committee rooms. This is because, when you go to all the well-established Parliaments, their committee rooms are
named after illustrious persons who have done so well for their country.
Mr Speaker, I do not see anything wrong if we decide to name the Administration Block where we house our Clerk to Parliament and most of the officers after the Late Peter Ala Adjetey. I do not see anything wrong in naming the Job 600 Tower Block after Hon D. F. Annan, and I do not see anything wrong naming most of the committee rooms after the likes of the Hon J. H. Mensah, Hon J. H. Owusu Acheampong and those who have served this House well.
Mr Speaker, if those of us today do not learn to remember these illustrious sons of this country very well, the truth is that we would never be remembered for anything good that we have also done. In many parliaments, even their chambers are named after Members of Parliament who really served. If you go to the United States, almost all the blocks are named after senators or congressmen who have really excelled in their work in the House.
Other than that, we must not expect that no matter the effort that we put in whether as Speaker or Majority Leader or a Member in running this House, we would ever be remembered because these men and women that we are mentioning today really served this House very well, and we need to put their names somewhere so that people who would come even 50 years after now would be asking why these names, and then that would make them understand the contributions they made in this House.
Hon J.H. Mensah has really paid his due. I am not surprised he is an October born, because October borns are courageous. They can say it regardless of the consequences. In fact, I was here and saw Hon J.H. Mensah.
