General News of Monday, 6 December 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-12-06I am safe in Parliament, I have no reason to fear colleague MPs – Joe Wise
Joseph Osei-Owusu is first Deputy Speaker of Parliament and MP for Bekwai
Bekwai MP Joe Wise says he feels safe in Parliament
He believes none of his colleagues will seek to harm him
An NPP MP alleged recently that some Minority MPs had planned to attack him
Member of Parliament for Bekwai and First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, alias Joe Wise has stated that he
Read full articlefeels safe in the House and has no reason to believe colleague MPs will attack him for any reason.
He spoke on Joy News’ ‘The Probe’ programme that aired on Sunday, December 5, 2021, stressing that contrary to talk of tension in the House, relations remained cordial among members.
“Some people have behaved in a manner I will call unruly, unparliamentary but when it comes to tensions I don’t see that. When we leave there, we discuss those things. When I was leaving the Chamber on Thursday, I was walking with some of the Minority people and we were discussing our respective views.
“There is no tension between us. I don’t believe that I will be attacked. I am sure that I am safe in the house. Even those who have been seen on videos doing things which I will call unparliamentary have themselves regretted what they did. I am not sure anybody wants to be cited again. But I have no reason to fear my colleague Members of Parliament,” he told the programme host.
He also explained why he had been absent from the Speaker’s chair after December 1 when a ruling he gave led to near-violent scenes in the Chamber.
Joe Wise said it was because there was little business to be done the following day after leadership agreed on a Committee to douse tensions in the House, that he asked the Second Deputy Speaker to preside over the business on Thursday.
Speaker Joe Wise’s rejection of a Minority motion seeking to reverse a budget approval the day before plus his pronouncement that he was not a Speaker but the First Deputy Speaker led to chaos on the floor of parliament, eventually leading to Ashaiman MP, Ernest Henry Norgbey whisking away the Speaker’s chair.
Commenting after the incident, the MP justified his actions stating that “we have to preserve the seat for Mr. Speaker to come.
“I didn’t just take the Speaker’s chair. I did that on the notion and the ruling of the speaker [of Honourable Joe Osei Owusu] who is the deputy speaker. He said a deputy speaker is not a speaker so he’s not the Speaker.
But I was of the view that if you are not the speaker, why then do you overturn the ruling of a Speaker. That is my point. And if you are not a speaker, why are you sitting in that chair? Then the best thing is that we have to preserve the seat for Mr. Speaker to come.
“[I wasn’t going to attack him] That time he had left. I won’t have attacked him…nobody would have attacked anybody” he told Joy News’ parliamentary correspondent Kwesi Parker Wilson.
