General News of Tuesday, 30 November 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-11-30You are ignorant!: Asiedu Nketia, NPP ‘walkout marshal’ clash over Parliamentary rules
Johnson Asiedu Nketia is General Secretary of the NDC
The NDC scribe was a subject of controversy in Parliament last week
The Majority MPs walked out because of his presence in the house
He explained why the call for his expulsion was misplaced
General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia got into a clash with Member of Parliament for Mpraeso,
Read full articleDavis Ansah Opoku when they appeared on a TV programme over the weekend.
The MP made headlines last Friday when he appeared to have started the call for members of the Majority Group to leave the House when a vote was to be held on the 2022 Budget. The walkout eventually happened and the budget was rejected by the Minority en bloc.
Asiedu Nketia speaking on ‘The Probe’ on Joy News last Sunday described the call by the Mpraeso MP for him to be removed from Parliament’s public gallery before a voice vote as ignorant accusing the MP of being ignorant about Standing Orders of Parliament.
“I believe the guy who was shouting, he’s been less than eight months in Parliament …I think he has no idea how Parliament runs at all, that is the impression I had because he should know, the various divisions, compartments and so on (in Parliament).
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“What you call Parliament House, you have the floor, lobbies and gallery – public and press gallery – so each of them is governed by rules as to who can be there and who cannot be there.
The NDC scribe added that where democracy is functioning well and people are interested in governance, the public gallery ought to be filled every day except where Parliament sits in camera or there is a close sitting.
“You don’t react to ignorance, he was insisting on non-existent rights, so I just enjoyed it and I don’t have anything to say about that. I believe that his own constituents and the elders of his party will call him to study the rules so that he does not embarrass the party,” he added.
Joining the show via Zoom, the MP hit back at Asiedu Nketia right from the get-go: “I can forgive the General Secretary of the NDC for displaying such ignorance on your programme.
“Yes, he has been a Member of Parliament but learning the rules do not take 10 years… if he did 10 years, for some of us, we have been blessed enough to know the standing orders of our Parliament. So I can forgive him,” he added.
He said an MP can sit in Parliament for 8 terms but “if you don’t know, you don’t know,” he added before accusing Asiedu Nketia of acting as though he was on an Akan station where he could lie his way and go free.
Meanwhile, Parliament reconvenes today for the first sitting since November 26, 2021, when the budget was rejected. The Majority Group insists that the rejection was unconstitutional and have vowed to reverse it today.
