While it is presently no news that the Majority in Parliament staged a walkout on Friday, what is unclear is the reason for that unprecedented action.
Unprecedented because, it is hardly the practice in Ghana for the party that holds majority of seats in Parliament, for whatever reason, to refuse to come to the House to debate issues of national concern.
Particularly so, when the House is on the cusp of reaching a decision on an important motion; approval of the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy.
But Peacefmonline.com has uncovered the very reasons which led to Friday's uncommon action.
Painstaking investigations reveal that three reasons culminated in the action by the Majority; and all have a bearing on what the group felt was the partisanship conduct of the Speaker, Rt Hon Alban Kinsford Sumana Bagbin.
According to Peacefmonline credible sources, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, reported to the House with a request to have the opportunity to incorporate some viewpoints made by the minority into the budget.
Key among them were;
- request to include allocations made for phase two of the sea defence project in Keta
- request to adjust the e-levy.
Majority leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu who moved the application on behalf of Ken Ofori-Atta argued the move is to afford the minister the chance to address the above concerns of the minority in order to secure consensus.
Peacefmonline.com is reliably informed these requests, amongst others, were mooted by the Minority, led by Haruna Iddrisu, and would have required consultation and costing if the minister was to include them in the budget.
However, the Majority had the shock of their lives when the same minority who made the requests, appeared unwilling to accede to the request of the minister.
The Minority's stance was unfortunately, also backed by the Speaker, Peacefmonline can confirm.
The speaker ruled the minister can only address parliament after the minority was done with the debate.
Why Sack Ken And Allow Gen Mosquito?
While refusing him the opportunity, the Speaker went further to ask the finance minister to leave the chamber since he was not a Member of Parliament.
But perhaps what really gored the Majority was the presence of Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC General Secretary, in the House.
Bad Faith
Additionally, Peacefmonline is informed that the Speaker's attention was drawn to the presence of other "strangers" in the Chamber and public galleries who as required by law, had no right to be present at that material time. But the repeated calls on the Speaker to compel these people to leave fell on deaf ears.
The Majority thus came to the conclusion that the Speaker is acting in bad faith and partisan in his decisions.
Budget Is Not Rejected!
"The majority is of the view that it cannot counternance an order by Mr Speaker for Marshals to take the Finance Minister out. The majority consequently walked out," a leading member of the Majority who wants to remain anonymous told Peacefmonline.
"Order 109 says the Speaker requires 138 members at least before he can put a question. He may have a quorum to take questions and statements but he needs 138 to put a question.
"Any decision that is taken with less than 138 people in the chamber is void. Ghanaians should disregard the claim that the budget is rejected," the source from the Majority side added.
Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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The arrogance of npp is pushing tto the brink of another coup in Ghana. Let us wash the country again with blood, after all Nana says all die be die.
Don't blame the speaker, but blame Kennedy Agyapong and his baby mama, Adowa Sarfo, for voting for the speaker Alban Bagbin.
The NDC as a political party, given its attitude towards the practice of democracy in the fourth republic of Ghana, has been that of cosmetic measures to keep it in power to seize and plunder the resources of the nation, but not for the general good of its people per se. Saying this, I have in sight the numerous uncoordinated and not properly planned exorbitant projects like the Dubai interchange, the sugar plant and the E-blocks projects, just to mention a few. And it is instructive to note that most of the projects are rushed to be executed shortly before elections.Now, just look at how they are out there in their numbers, like hunting dogs with sharp teeth, doing all sorts of malacious propaganda to get first political power, and then everything will be added to it, so to speak.
The minority decided to reject the budget even before they got the opportunity to know the content. Ghanaian politicians only think about their party and not the development of the the country.
)twee b3br3, na )bofo) nso b3br3!!
I don't blame any one but the npp party and the npp parliamentarians who voted for Alban Bagbin, the power drunk. Next time u will learn to forgive no matter how a party member offends u. More of these biase await us all. Someone who sleeps with the wife's sister??? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarh.. We all dey inside
Pls peacefm give us a break on this one. There's no majority party in Parliament. There's a major side or group. All this while peacefm has never noticed the behaviour of the npp intended to undermine speaker Gbargbin with their arrogance. Just few: 1 see how the majority treated the clear mistake of the populist action of the road minister instead of just admitting and saying sorry, in any case, we are all happy abt the abolishment of the road toll but Clearly he erred 2 The behaviour of the majority group on the sosu arrest case, 3 Urgent question on the presidential travel case etc Clearly they try to undermine the speaker bcos it's not from them instead of trying to build consensus bcos of nature of parliament.
"Painstaking investigations..."? Peace FM, as a news organization, should take its business seriously and make some attempt at being credible. What Peace FM claims to be a painstaking investigative report is almost word for word the statement that Akwasi Acquah, the MP for Oda and former producer at Peace FM, has posted on Facebook. If Peace FM chooses to be pro-NPP, the least it can do is to be intelligent about it. A serious news organization does not simply parrot statements from politicians and pass that off as "painstaking investigations."
Since Ghanaians did not vote to elect the Speaker, the majority should explore ways in the constitution to get him out.