Maturity needed to stop chaos in parliament- MP

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Nkoranza South, Mr Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum says it will only take maturity to stop the back and forth chaos that is happening in parliament over the 2022 budget and other important matters that need to be voted on.

Although he admitted that such chaotic scenes do not occur only in Ghana, he said there has to be some level of maturity in the Ghanaian parliament where people will sit down, negotiate and dialogue and come out with a decision.

There was chaos in parliament on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 after First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Wusu ruled in favour of the NPP following Minority’s motion to set aside Tuesday’s 2022 budget approval.

The 2022 budget statement was on Friday rejected by the country’s Parliament after a heated debate.

The rejection was made possible after all 137 Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) voted against the motion on Friday while members of the Majority Caucus had abandoned their seats in protest against alleged bias on the part of the Speaker of Parliament Prior to the crucial voting, the Speaker had called for a head count to establish if the House had form a quorum in order to proceed.

A quorum was formed per the Speaker’s judgement even though members of the Majority caucus had staged a walkout.

But on Tuesday, the budget was approved by the Majority in the absence of the Minority.

While in parliament to make further deliberations on the budget, the Minority suggested that the budget’s approval be reversed.

But the First Deputy Speaker overruled the motion by the Minority Leader to reverse the approval of the budget leading to attempts by some Minority MPs to snatch the Mace, which is the symbol of authority in Parliament.

This caused chaos with some MPs confronting each other.

Speaking on Atinka TV’s morning show, Ghana Nie with Ekourba Gyasi Simpremu, Mr Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum admitted that Ghanaians are not happy about the continuous fight that has been going on in parliament.

He noted that the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah had written that the Majority were ready for negotiations with the opposition, saying that is the type of maturity needed to solve issues.

“When we have such a situation, it is not about fighting, it is not about disrespecting the minority, it is not about going to say whatever you want to say, it is not about counting the Speaker sitting in his chair as another person, and it is not going to happen to only NDC now. One day the table will turn and this decision is not what our democracy is expecting,” he said.

Mr Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum added that, “Our democracy is expecting that people should sit down maturely, dialogue, negotiate, understand whatever. They should go back to the table and look at whatever the people of Ghana are expecting from their members of parliament and this is the level that people should be championing.”