Member of Parliament for Juaboso Constituency, Mr. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has refuted claims by members of the Majority that Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin, acted in a partisan way last Friday when the House failed to approve the 2022 budget.
His comment comes after the Majority Caucus has been accusing the Speaker of Parliament, and the Minority of subjecting the government of Ghana to embarrassment for mere partisan reasons after the budget was thrown out.
A statement from the Majority said: “The Majority Caucus finds it unfortunate that after making requests to the Finance Minister to consider some items in the Budget Statement, the Minority Caucus assisted by Speaker Bagbin, who had earlier indicated his ability to obstruct Government business, refused to give the Finance Minister and opportunity to accommodate their requests and instead hurriedly moved to on their own, attempt to vote against the Budget in a bid to subject the Government of Ghana to embarrassment for mere partisan reasons”.
“For the record, the acts of the Minority and the decision of the Speaker to endorse it, constitute an unconstitutionality and an illegality and should be disregarded, as same is void and of no effect whatsoever”.
“We assure the good people of Ghana of our resolute willingness to ensure that the 1992 Constitution is respected to the letter by Speaker Bagbin and the Minority.”
But speaking on Tonton Sansan on TV XYZ, Akando disagreed with the Majority and defended the Speaker of Parliament.
Andrew Mercer, MP for Sekondi and member of the Majority who spoke to Kwame Minkah on Tonton Sansan accused Bagbin of breaching Parliamentary procedures by asking Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to leave the law-making chamber while NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketiah was at the public gallery.
But Akando on the other side said if Bagbin was biased, saying “five of their members [NPP MPS] were not in the house. Some of them were not in the country but the speaker suspended sitting for 30 minutes. In the end, we were not called back to the house until after 2 hours.”
Source: myxyzonline.com
