Don’t blame me for your failures in Parliament—Speaker tells Kyei Mensah
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Bagbin has distanced himself of any fault in relation to the recent scuffle in the house over the imposition of the 1.75 per cent electronic transfer levy known as E-Levy.
According to him, as Speaker, he has worked with the leadership of the house to conduct business and to apply the rules fairly.
The Speaker was reacting to an allegation by the Majority Leader, Kyei Mensah Bonsu, that the Speaker left his seat on Monday without the notice to the House.
Mr. Kyei Mensah Bonsu at a briefing on Thursday, December 23, 2021, quizzed the motives of the Speaker for leaving his seat on Monday [December 20, 2021, without due notice to the house.
He also insisted it is possible that the Speaker of Parliament is carrying out plans to stall business of the house due to his insistence on getting the Minister for Finance to allocate 1.72 billion Ghana cedis to Parliament.
Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu also disclosed that the Speaker openly confronted the Minister on November 17, 2021, before the budget reading on the need for such an amount to be allocated.
He thus blamed him for the chaos that characterizes the house anytime he isn’t presiding.
But in a sharp rebuttal, Mr Bagbin who was addressing former MPs at a forum on same day, Thursday, December 23, 2021, dismissed the Majority Leader rejected such claims.
He said, he could not be blamed for non-availability of members because he is not a Chief Whip of any of the caucuses in the house and for that matter isn’t duty-bound to bring in members to the chamber.
Speaker Bagbin also insisted that he has been applying the rules of the house fairly with literature and experience.
“Now they say I refused to preside and that is why some numbers were not in the house. I am not a Chief whip of any of the caucuses in the house and I am also not entitled to bring members to the house. That is not my duty.”
“I am to preside and apply the rules and I have applied them fairly according to my understanding through literature and experience and I am not even sure that the members listened to what I read that day about the rules
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