PARLIAMENT ADJOURNS ABRUPTLY – MINORITY MP's FUMES OVER RECALL

The Member of Parliament for Walewale, Hon. Abdul Kabiru Tiah Mahama, has slammed the leadership of Parliament over what he describes as an abrupt adjournment of the House without any cogent reason.

Addressing the media in Parliament on behalf of the Minority after proceedings on Tuesday, the MP said the House was adjourned again "without any cogent and not any reason that anyone would attest to the fact that the purpose or the reasoning behind the adjournment is anything tenable."

He recalled that pursuant to Order 58(4) of the Standing Orders of Parliament, the Speaker "rudely" recalled Members from recess while they were engaging with their constituents.

According to him, MPs were recalled to transact three main businesses:
1.  To consider and possibly approve the Deposit Protection Amendment Bill,
2.  To consider the nominees for Ministers of State, and
3.  To consider nominees appointed to the Supreme Court of Ghana.

Hon. Mahama said the Minority also had equally important business, including a motion filed to investigate losses occasioned by GoldBod, but the Speaker was clear that business should be limited strictly to matters that necessitated the recall.

"We reluctantly agreed with the Speaker that the matters should be limited to the reasons why they recalled Parliament," he said.

He however lamented that Tuesday marked the third day out of the five days for which Parliament was recalled, yet no urgent business had been considered.

"You've seen today is the third day of the five days that we've been recalled to sit. Effectively we have wasted about 75 percent of the time that we're supposed to use to consider the urgent matters, i.e. emergent matters that they say we should consider," Hon. Mahama stated.

The Walewale MP accused government of failing to present its business despite requesting an abridgement of time to deal with urgent national issues and further accused the government of failing to do the necessary groundwork to allow the work of Parliament to proceed despite an emergency recall.
He warned that government appears to be planning to rush through critical national business in a single day after wasting three days of the emergency recall.

“You know, for the bill to be referred to the committee and the committee will look at it and make proposals to the House for consideration – that is not tenable. We cannot use two days for this and I'm seeing a situation where the government wants us to rush through in a single day everything. That has been very characteristic of this government – to use a single day to railroad everything that they want to go through in a single day,” he stated.

The Walewale MP said such conduct amounts to an abuse of the overwhelming majority Ghanaians gave to the NDC in Parliament.
He further criticized the Majority side for failing to even muster numbers to explain why the House was being adjourned again, while the Minority, who are not supposed to prosecute government business, were present in their numbers to support.

The Walewale legislator concluded that if the current government lacks leadership and direction, it should hand over power to Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the NPP.