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Member of Parliament for Kpandai, Mathew Nyindam says the perception that Parliamentarians are rich is erroneous.

According to him, MPs are too broke to service their cars at the plush car servicing companies and are rather relying heavily on  wayside mechanics.

He welcomed the call for verification and publication of assets of public office holders, hoping that will help clear the erroneous perception particularly about the Parliamentarians.

“If you see an MP’s pay slip you wont believe it but the perception out there is that we are rich so lets declare maybe it will help us” Mathew Nyindam said on Multi TV Tuesday.

He said it is difficult to convince constituents that it is not all rosy being in Parliament.

“You come to Parliament as a young man, you are given a loan, you buy a car, a very big car, you [ride] in that car [and] all of a sudden somebody sees you in that car, you cant go and tell your constituents you are poor. There is no justification, they will never listen to you”.

He blamed the National Commission for Civic Education for failing to educate citizens to understand the role of Parliamentarians.

He disclosed “we bought our cars from Japan Motors. For now there are a lot of people who are not able to send their cars to Japan Motors for servicing because when you go there they give you a bill. You need about ¢1,000.00 ¢2,000.00 now [to service there so] most people are using the road side mechanics to service their cars because they cannot pay”.

Contributing to the subject, Member of Parliament for Ablekuma South and Chairman of Defence and Interior committee Fritz Baffour disclosed that Parliamentarians also need better conditions of service.

He says unlike the doctors who are agitating for the conditions of service, they are laid back because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

He said some MPs leave Parliament broke. “It's not that they weren’t prepared. It’s a four year thing and at the end of it all, you could be someone who expects to win and when you don’t win, you are left in the lurch”.

He said failure by political parties to fund the campaigns of individual MPs is also a big drain on the meagre resources of the MPs.