I am sorry – Ken Agyapong tells MPs

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, has unreservedly apologised to Parliament for saying that the house is a cheap institution.

He rendered the apology when he appeared before the Privileges Committee yesterday for the comment deemed to be contemptuous of Parliament on NET 2 TV, which was brought to the attention of the House by the Minority Chief Whip and National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Asawase, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, on June 6.

He said he made those utterances against Parliament because he was so much provoked by the First Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Kwabena Nsenkyire, who had told him that he (Agyapong) does not deserve to be in Parliament and be called an honourable MP for taking on Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who had done an expose’ on the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and the corrupt practices there.

He said for insulting him and referring to him as a ‘useless’ MP for his attempt to also expose Anas, Kwabena Nsenkyire should have rather been hauled before the Privileges Committee.



He, however, said that he never said Parliament was ‘useless’ as was being peddled by Hon. Muntaka who raised the issue on the floor of the House.

He said he had problems with some of the evidence that was put before the committee by the Minority leader, stressing that portions of the tapes were edited by the complainant out of malice and mischief.

According to Mr Agyapong, if the complainant were to be present at yesterday’s sitting, he (Agyapong) would ask him certain questions that would have embarrassed him.

He said for the minority chief whip to cull another evidence from the social media authored by mynews.com, which were attributed to him but which he never said, was very much unfortunate and disingenuous on the part of the minority chief whip.

“I am apologising to Parliament because of the respect I have for this institution. I am ready to apologise if Parliament is offended by my words and I would not mind retracting the word that has offended Parliament”.



Early on, counsel for the respondent who is also the MP for Effutu, Alex Afenyo-Markin, had said that the respondent had filed a motion at the plenary to challenge the regularity of the committee and its mandate to continue with the contempt case against his client.

The chairman of the committee who is also the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, said the argument of the counsel could not be accepted and that Parliament must be seen to be serious with the case and therefore hearing ought to go on for the enquiries to be made to enable the committee write its report and present it to the plenary.

After listening to the tape from the NET 2 TV, the chairman of the committee said there were contemptuous words that had been uttered by the Assin Central against Parliament in the ‘Twi’ dialect.



According to the chairman of the committee, the Assin Central MP had used the words ‘cheap’ and ‘useless’ which almost have the same pronunciation in the ‘Twi’ language but the respondent said he only uttered the word ‘cheap’ to describe Parliament in response to insults heaped on him by the Ashanti regional vice chairman of NPP.

He therefore unreservedly apologized for the use of that word.