The Majority Chief Whip in Parliament, Mr. Frank Annoh-Dompreh, has admonished his colleague Members of Parliament (MPs), particularly those from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), to stop attacking the First Deputy Speaker and taking away the Speaker’s Chair anytime there is a debate on issues of national importance.
Such acts, he noted, are attacks on democracy, akin to the numerous coup d’états the West Africa sub-region has witnessed in recent times.
According to the Nsawam-Adoagyiri lawmaker, MPs are classified among the ruling class and must therefore be seen to be championing democracy wherever they find themselves.
He any act to the contrary, will derail the gains Ghana has made in its democratic dispensation.
The Majority Chief Whip gave the advice when he contributed to a statement made by the NDC MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa in condemning successive coup d’états in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso, and the recent attempted coup in Burkina Faso.
Mr Annoh-Dompreh noted that attacks on the Speaker’s Chair by the NDC MPs during the previous meeting could best be described as a coup d’état, urging all legislators to reflect on the distasteful act and purge themselves.
“It cannot be justified under any circumstance that Members of Parliament will reduce intellectual arguments into fisticuffs and we have people who were targeting the seat of the Speaker. It cannot be that. And if you are continuously engaged in that, you are preparing the grounds for the unfortunate.
“It is high time we also reflect. Growing up as a leader, I have never seen MPs going after the Speaker’s seat, I have never seen that. Both sides we need to reflect. The ruling class must reflect and we are part of the ruling class. We cannot at one time or at one hand condemn coup d’état and at another hand surreptitiously and physically trying to attack the Speaker of Parliament. For me, that is a form of a coup d’état. Anybody that engages in fisticuff in Parliament here is fueling and facilitating a coup d’état and must be condemned in no uncertain terms”, he stressed.
MPs’ fisticuffs
During the consideration and approval of the 2022 budget in December last year, a disagreement ensued in the House following accusations by the Minority that the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu who chaired the sitting erred in counting himself as part of the Majority to form a quorum to overturn their decision and approve the budget.
Mr Osei-Owusu after listening to arguments for and against the approval of the budget, ruled in favour of the Majority, insisting that he did not partake in the voting for the approval of the budget.
This resulted in heated arguments in the House leading to the NDC MP for Ashaiman, Ernest Norgbey, taking the Speaker’s chair from its original position.
However, commenting on the indecent act, the Ashaiman MP told journalists that he was preserving the seat for the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, who was on a medical leave in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Chaos in Parliament
On December 21, 2021, there was a brawl in Parliament during a late-night sitting over government’s proposed Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy).
Members from both sides of the House shoved, pushed and threw punches at each other while others tried to separate them.
It took the intervention of the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, to let sanity prevail in the House.
This was after some NDC MPs had rushed forward to take the Speaker’s Chair and prevent the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Andrews Asiamah, from taking over the Chair to enable the First Deputy Speaker, Joe Wise, who was then presiding over the sitting, allegedly to take part in a voting exercise over the E-Levy.
The opposition NDC MPs had rejected the proposed E-Levy of 1.75% on electronic transactions, which included mobile-money payments.
However, reflecting on those scenes, Mr. Annoh-Dompreh told Parliament that never again should such acts be repeated in the chamber, urging all MPs to say no to fisticuffs on the floor of the House.
“You cannot be condemning coup d’état; you cannot be condemning people who take advantage of the law; you cannot be condemning people who will not resort to the law court and yet you come here and engage in fisticuffs and you expect the good people of this country to praise you.
“This statement is timely and I want and I want to sound a word of caution that if we don’t reflect positively and show the way in terms of democracy, we are leading this country into a danger and posterity will not forgive this 8th Parliament if this will continue”, he reiterated.
