Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh Dompreh has accused the Minority in Parliament depsrately moving to sustina debate on the 2022 budget until Speaker of Parliament Alaban Bagbin returns from his trip.
The Minority had insisted First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu exhibited political bias in not admitting a motion filed by the caucus’s leader, Haruna Iddrisu, on Tuesday, December 7.
The Tamale South Member of Parliament (MP) filed the motion, seeking to overturn the December 1 ruling of Mr Osei-Owusu, who presided over a one-sided House to admit the motion on the 2022 budget statement and economic policy of government moved by the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
In a reply to the Minority Leader, the Clerk to Parliament, Cyril Nsiah, said the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bekwai Constituency “pursuant to Order 13(2) of the Standing Orders of Parliament, has directed that I inform you that your motion is not admitted”.
This seems not to have gone down well with the Minority.
“Obviously when Mr Speaker comes, we will take this matter up to possibly submit another motion on it because we believe that [First Deputy Speaker’s] refusal to admit the motion was very bias,” the caucus’s Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, told journalists after a crunch meeting on Monday, December 13.
The Asawase MP was livid Joewise, as the First Deputy Speaker is popularly called, was more politically bias instead of doing the work of a Speaker of Parliament.
He stressed that that action by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP has given the Minority no option than to wait for Alban Sumana Bagbin, a long-time National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP until his election as Speaker, to come for a fresh motion to be filed.
The former Nadowli-Kaleo MP is expected to return on Tuesday, December 14, from a medical review in Dubai.
Responding to the Minority, Mr Annoh-Dompreh who is also Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri said “This is simply another desperate attempt of the Minority to extend debate on this matter till the Rt. Hon. Speaker returns, even though the application expired after the decision of the 1st Deputy Speaker.
If the Minority wish to further their allegations of a bias ruling, they will soon come to realize that they have no evidence that can be recognized according to our Orders to establish their claims. In all technicality the decision of the Speaker on the application of the minority is primarily valid, and is also not just a decision but a ruling.”
