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A leading member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Yaw Osafo-Marfo, has described as an “exaggeration” the cry of many ranking members of Parliament that the influx of youth vying to join Parliament will affect business in the House.

Francisca Oteng-Mensah, a second-year law student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, will be contesting in the 2016 parliamentary race on the ticket of the NPP in the Kwabre East constituency of the Ashanti region after defeating the incumbent in last Saturday's primaries.

But following her victory, Head of the Political Science Department of KNUST, Dr Richard Amoako Baah, said Ms Oteng-Mensah was “too young” and inexperienced", adding that it would have been different a scenario if she had graduated from school, but as a second-year student, she brings nothing to the table.

The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Enoch Teye Mensah, also waded in describing as worrying the attrition rate in Ghana’s Parliament.

The legislator explains that this development is not helping the growth of Parliament as a law-making institution.

E. T. Mensah was particularly worried about the loss of some experienced MPs in the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) parliamentary primaries.

At the weekend, 24 NPP MPs, many of them front benchers, lost in their bid to contest the 2016 parliamentary elections.

Some of them are Dr Richard Anane of Nhyiaeso Constituency: Dr Afriyie Akoto of Kwadaso; and Mr. Francis Addai-Nimoh of the Mampong Constituency.

Sharing his thoughts on the issue on Okay Fm’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Yaw Osafo Marfo who admitted losing an election is painful, however described the concerns raised as ‘exaggerating’ as these youth are also coming into the august House with new knowledge and ideas.

He explained that the ranking members have more than one year to complete their work in the House, since their four year term ends in December 2016; adding their defeats now will not affect the parliamentary proceedings.

"...admittedly NPP may suffer initial setbacks but is certain it won’t affect the party much...The issue of parliamentary work being affected due to absence of some ranking members who lost their seats is exaggerated. Nobody should panic that the new ones in parliament will affect parliamentary proceeding because we went into parliament in 1997 for the first time but we made a significant impact in parliament,” he assured.

He insisted that more youth aspiring to be parliamentarians is positive because this means NPP has become attractive to the youth who are willing to serve the country through the party.