The leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) caucus, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has raised concerns over the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin’s stance on the seating arrangement in the House.
According to him, the Speaker is overseeing disorder in Parliament by allowing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) caucus to occupy the majority side of the House, which he claims is not their rightful place.
Addressing the media in Parliament on Thursday, November 7, Mr Afenyo-Markin noted that Speaker Bagbin during his press conference on Wednesday, stated he did not make a ruling on declaring four parliamentary seats vacant, but rather it was a formal communication to the House.
“If he claims that what he did was a formal communication in response to a statement from the Minority leader, then why is he supervising chaos in the House,” he questioned.
“What Mr Speaker did today amounts to supervising chaos and bringing the image of democracy to disrepute,” Mr Afenyo-Markin added.
Mr Afenyo-Markin explained that he had inquired with the Speaker about the seating arrangement and whether he had authorised NDC MPs to sit on the majority side of the House, to which the Speaker responded that he had not proclaimed them as the majority.
He said the Speaker added that arranging seats in the House was the responsibility of the Clerk to Parliament.
“This took me to the next step of inquiring from the Clerk whether he allowed the NDC Minority to sit on our seats, he said indeed we (NPP) had our name tags on those seats we already occupied and that was not him who did that,” he explained.
The NPP leader continued; “So obviously, one was expecting Mr Speaker to direct the NDC to do the right thing, but he refused.”
Mr Afenyo-Markin’s comments followed the Speaker’s decision to adjourn the House indefinitely on Thursday, November 7, after NPP MPs failed to attend the session.
Speaker Bagbin announced that without the presence of the NPP MPs, the House could not meet the quorum required to make decisions, and with no business before the House, legislative action could not proceed.
The absence of the NPP MPs from Parliament came after the NDC MPs once again occupied the majority side of the House, claiming to be the majority party following the Speaker’s ruling that declared four MPs’ seats vacant.
On the back of this, Mr Afenyo-Markin noted that Speaker Bagbin had engaged with the Council of State, the Peace Council, and other prominent individuals, agreeing to direct the NDC MPs to sit on the minority side.
“The Council of State held meetings with the Speaker and as the majority leader and leader of government business, I had the opportunity to also meet with them. The understanding I had from the meeting was that Mr Speaker would direct the NDC Minority to sit at their right place, which is the left of Mr Speaker.
“I subsequently had a call from the Peace Council. The Peace Council informed me that they had engaged Mr Speaker on the issue before Parliament and Mr Speaker had indeed indicated to them that he had not ruled nor had he proclaimed the NDC Minority and that should Parliament reconvene, the NDC Minority would go back to their seats,” he said.
