By Edzorna Francis Mensah
The Majority in Parliament has launched a counterattack on the Speaker, describing his decision to adjourn the House without recourse to its members, especially the Leadership, as ‘‘most arbitrary, capricious, and undemocratic’’.
According to them, the established practice in the House has always been that the Leadership of the House guides the Chair to conduct the Business of the House, but strangely to their surprise, ‘‘the Speaker aborted the work of the House when the following matters, of which he was aware, were pending as Business of the day: Tax waivers, Laying of papers, Consideration of bills, Outstanding IDA facility and Approval of Ministerial Nominees’’.
A statement issued in Accra, dated 20th March, 2024 notes that the consequences of the Speakers’ action ‘‘are clear that the economy will suffer and Government business will be undermined because of the pleasure of one man’’.
The statement further accused the NDC Minority of hunger for power and a ploy to frustrate government business, as the Majority suggested that the NDC is ‘‘febrile mood to come to power and are very excited and supportive of Mr Speaker. This is a conspiracy to sabotage the Government. Mr Speaker and the NDC deliberately misconstrued the letter from the Office of the President to set an agenda to satisfy their parochial political interests. It is consistent with their avowed aim to put impediments in the way of the NPP’s governance of the country, Was it not their failed agenda to reject the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of 2022 as a grand scheme to mislead Ghanaians so they would vote them into power?’’
They said, ‘‘NDC is bereft of ideas. They do not have any credible alternative solutions to the problems of international dimensions facing Ghana’s economy. The poverty of the NDC’s political posture is clear and obvious, and Ghanaians will not return them to power come December 2024.’’
On Wednesday, 20th March, 2024 Speaker of Parliament Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin shocked the MPs when he adjourned the House sine die without recourse to public business captured in the order paper for the twenty-eighth sitting of the first meeting of Parliament on Wednesday, 20th March, 2024.
One the key public business captured as motion number 11 on page 12 which reads, “that this Honourable house adopted the thirty-fourth report of the Appointment Committee on H. E. The President’s nominations for Appointment as ministers and regional Ministers”.
In his formal statement on the refusal of the President to accept the transmission of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2021, Speaker Bagbin said, “in the light of this process, the House is unable to continue to consider the nominations of His Excellency the President in the “spirit of upholding the rule of law” until after the determination of the application for interlocutory injunction by the Supreme Court”.
According to him, Parliament of Ghana will comply with the existing legal framework and reject the attempts by the Executive Secretary of the President, through his contemptuous letter, to instruct the Clerk to Parliament, an Officer of Parliament whose position is recognisably under the Constitution and “we shall not cease and desist!”
The Speaker who came to the Chamber purposely to adjourn in unusual mode stressed, “be that as it may, Hon Members, I also bring to your attention, the receipt of a process from the Courts titled Rockson-Nelson Etse K. Dafeamekpor vrs. The Speaker of Parliament and the Attorney -General (Suit no. J1/12/2024) which process was served on the 19th of March 2024 and an injunction motion on notice seeking to restrain the Speaker from proceeding with the vetting and approval of the names of the persons submitted by His Excellency the President until the provisions of the constitution are satisfied.”
But the Majority at the news conference addressed by the Leader, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, disagreed with the Speaker and submitted that the Speaker has torpedoed the Government’s work by depriving the President and Ghana of the able men and women who will assist him in running the Government machinery.
‘‘It is our humble belief that it is the Speaker who is undermining our democracy and not Mr President.’’
