The Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has accused the Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin of supervising lawlessness by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawmakers.
This was after he accused NDC MPs of engaging in lawlessness by occupying the side of the Majority in the House again during proceedings on Thursday, November 7.
Addressing a press conference in Parliament on Thursday, November 7, he said “The speaker supervised chaos …clearly the NDC is on a war path, they want confusion and they want lawlessness in this country and all these are being supervised by Mr. Speaker.
“The Speaker is setting the country on fire, we were disappointed with his non-reconciliatory during his press conference. We call on him to demonstrate statesmanship, we want him to know that although we were not happy on the day he was elected, it wasn’t the NDC that put him but members of our side.
“Mr Speaker is hurting democracy…how can the speaker say he respects the constitution but he will not subject himself to the dictate of the constitution.”
Speaker Alban Bagbin adjourned Parliament indefinitely for the second time. On Thursday, November, 7 when the House reconvened after an earlier adjournment on October 22, the NPP caucus in the House were not present in the Chamber, leading to the Speaker’s adjournment.
Alban Bagbin while addressing MPs in the chamber said there is no quorum to be formed for the House to transact business as the NPP MPs were absent in the Chamber.
According to Bagbin, the Business Committee failed to present a business order for the House, hence Parliament had nothing to deliberate upon leading to the indefinite adjournment.
“We have no business before us to transact…In view of the failure of the business committee to sit as a result of a refusal of those who requested for a recall, we are once again adjourning the House…I proceed once more to adjourn the meeting indefinitely,” Bagbin stated.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Caucus in Parliament requested an emergency recall of Parliament after Bagbin adjourned the House indefinitely on Tuesday, October 22 owing to the boycott of Parliament by the NPP MPs and the subsequent lack of quorum for the House to sit.
In a memo addressed to the Speaker, the NPP Caucus highlighted some important government business that has to be approved.
“We respectfully request that, upon recall of the House, the following urgent government business be deliberated upon and transacted including any other business that comes before the House,” the Caucus said in a memo to the Speaker.
However, after Bagbin had heeded to the Caucus’ plea, the NPP MPs failed to be present in the Chamber on November 7, and did not present the business order for which they had wanted the House to be recalled.
Leader of the NDC caucus in Parliament, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson explained that his side of the House were present at the Business Committee meeting only to find out that the NPP MPs on the Committee did not show up.
Speaking to the media, shortly after the adjournment of the House, Ato Forson noted that although he reached out to the NPP on the matter, no MP responded.
“This morning at about seven o’clock, we showed up at the Business Committee meeting and we noticed that the NPP members of the Business Committee once again failed to show up.
“I personally called the Committee clerk and I was informed that she is out of the jurisdiction and no one had called to inform her about the Business of the day.
“I was worried and reached out to the NPP side to have an indication as to what their plan is, no one responded,” Ato Forson explained.
Source:
3news.com
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