Minority considering barring Joe Wise from presiding as Speaker

Minority vow to challenge overruling of motion for rescission of 2022 budget approval

ACEPA urges majority, minority to build consensus

Parliament to reconvene tomorrow Tuesday, December 7

The minority caucus in parliament has stated that it is considering a move to bar first deputy speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu

Read full article(Joe Wise) from presiding as the speaker following his comments that “a deputy speaker is not a speaker”.

Joseph Osei Owusu who also doubles as the member of parliament for the Bekwai Constituency, in dismissing a motion by the minority for a rescission of the 2022 budget approval sought to draw a distinction between who a deputy speaker is and who a speaker is.

He said, “any attempt to read and interpret the constitution of ‘Mr. Speaker’ to include the deputy speakers is a misreading and a misapplication of the constitution”.

Joe Wise had on November 30, 2021, counted himself as the 138th MP to form a quorum for decision making as stipulated in Article 104 (1) which eventually led to the all-majority MP side approving the 2022 budget statement.

The first deputy speaker’s conduct has since generated widespread criticism, particularly, from the minority who argue that per the statement of the MP cum sit-in speaker, he has no locus presiding over the business of the House.



In an interview, Bongo MP, Edward Bawa indicated that suggestions to bar the speaker from presiding are already rife amongst members of the minority caucus.

“These are thoughts that have gone through a lot of people’s minds including myself and the point is this, if you look at Order 7…the Order 7 gives you the definition of who a Speaker is. Order 7 talks about Mr. Speaker himself being a Speaker and any other member who presides over a sitting. And so, it tells you that at the time the first deputy speaker was presiding, he was presiding as a Speaker [that’s the first point]. Recall on Tuesday before the supposed approval of now what they call the budget, the acting clerk got up and read Order 13 (2) indicating clearly that Mr. Speaker was out of the jurisdiction and that as per Order 13 (2), the first deputy speaker was to assume the role of Mr. Speaker and all that and that until otherwise stated, he was going to act as the Speaker of the parliament,” he told Joy News parliamentary correspondent Kwesi Parker Wilson on Thursday, December 2, 2021.

“And so, if you knew this and then you openly say that you are not the speaker, then you have no business sitting there because then we are a bit confused because as we speak now, the head of parliament now is the first deputy speaker because the speaker himself is out of the jurisdiction. But then if the person holding the fort says I am not the person, it tells us that whoever comes there in the form and shape of Honourable Joseph Osei Owusu is an impostor and we won’t be comfortable with that. So, we are only holding him to his own words that he is not the speaker,” he further stated.

Honourable Edward Bawa added that it will be hypocritical of Joseph Osei Owusu should he at any point assume the seat of the Speaker of Parliament to preside over a sitting.

“If he comes again to come and preside over any sitting then that will be hypocrisy of what he said himself because by his very conduct he indicated that he was not ready to assume the office of Mr Speaker in the absence of Mr. Speaker outside the jurisdiction of Ghana as per Order 13(2). So that’s why we are saying that if he comes it will be a betrayal of his own position that ‘I am not the Speaker’,” he stated.

Joseph Osei Owusu ceded his role as presiding Speaker to the second deputy speaker, Andrew Asiamah, after failing to make a return to the chamber when he suspended sitting for an hour.



This is after he had in a chaotic atmosphere overruled the minority’s motion for rescission of the 2022 budget approval.

The Bekwai MP again was nowhere in sight on Thursday, December 2, 2021, parliamentary sitting with the second deputy speaker stepping in his stead.

Meanwhile, parliament is expected to sit tomorrow Tuesday, December 7, 2021.