The Majority New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Parliament has accused the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, of supervising lawlessness in the legislature.
According to caucus leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the decision by the Speaker to adjourn the House indefinitely was in bad faith and intended to frustrate government business.
“What Speaker did today amounts to supervising chaos and bringing the image of democracy into disrepute.
“The NDC is on a war path. They want confusion and lawlessness in the country and all these are unfortunately being supervised by the Speaker,” he told a news conference in Accra yesterday.
Mr Bagbin adjourned the House sine die citing the failure of the NPP caucus to report to the plenary and the lack of business to be transacted.
The meeting was in response to a request for a recall pursuant to article 112(3) of the Constitution and Order 53 of the Standing Orders of Parliament by 83 Members; all of the NPP caucus.
When the Speaker walked into the chamber yesterday, only the NDC caucus was available, prompting another adjournment.
“The signatories who made the request for the recall have not shown up and therefore, matters they wanted us to handle, which are admitted for the consideration of the business committee are not on the order paper. In fact, there is no order paper for today because the Business Committee could not meet due to the absence of the people who requested for the recall,” the Speaker said.
But Afenyo-Markin, MP for Effutu, said the narratives do not represent the back door engagements with the Speaker and leadership of the House.
“I chair the business committee and when the Clerk to Parliament asked for the business committee meeting, I was explicit that the subject matter of the recall as approved by the Speaker is the very matter for consideration so there was no need for another business committee meeting,” the Majority Leader said.
He said Speaker’s claim that by him going to court for proper and better interpretation of the provisions of the constitution on the declaration of seats vacant were far from the truth as he went to have the matter settled to avoid chaos in Parliament.
“I informed Speaker before going to court. I didn’t go to court in bad faith and it wasn’t the case that a matter was happening in Parliament and I ran to seek refuge at the court,” he explained.
In his view, the ‘artificial impasse’ in Parliament is to frustrate government businesses including the passage of the Free Senior High School Bill, and create the false impression that there was chaos in Ghana.
“We call on Mr Speaker to demonstrate statesmanship. We want Mr Speaker to know that although we were not happy on the day he was elected, some of our colleagues had seen something good in him. It wasn’t the NDC that put him there to do the bidding of the NDC. People felt he could bring us together.
“Mr Speaker is hurting democracy. What Mr Speaker is doing is to rehearse what the NDC is likely to do should they lose the election; to create chaos and confusion. What Mr Speaker is doing is in bad faith,” he stated.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
Source:
ghanaiantimes.com.gh
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