A former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini, has admonished the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, to be more tolerant of divergent opinions from members of the House.
Bagbin defending his ruling to refer Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to an ad-hoc committee for allegations against him by the Minority to be probed, accused MP for Asawase, Muntaka Mubarak of attacking his ruling despite not having the authority to do so.
The exchanges between the two started after Asawase MP rose to second the motion of censure vote as moved by Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, he started off by quoting Order 106 of the Standing Orders which Bagbin relied on to rule that the censure motion be referred to a committee before it comes back to the plenary.
But Bagbin interjected the Asawaase MP’s submission stating, “Hon, you are completely out of order. Hon. Member, I don’t take my rulings lightly, please. You are attacking my ruling, and I think you don’t have the authority to do so. If you want to attack my ruling, come by a substantive motion.”
But speaking in an interview on the Eyewitness News on Thursday, Inusah Fuseini described the exchanges as unfortunate and called on the Speaker to be more tolerant.
“I think that what happened was unfortunate. The Speaker should be more tolerant of divergent views to bring order in Parliament. Nothing prevents a member from disagreeing with the Speaker’s ruling on the floor of the house, except that the Speaker will remind that member that there is a rule of procedure in challenging decisions of a Speaker.”
Meanwhile, the Bagbin has constituted an 8-member committee co-chaired by KT Hammond, Adansi-Asokwa MP, and Dominic Ayine, Bolgatanga East MP, on Thursday, November 10, 2022, to probe the allegations against the Finance Minister.
The committee which has 7 days to submit its report comprises Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, Bernard Ahiafor on the Minority side and Patrick Yaw Boamah, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi and Andrew Agyapa Mercer from the Majority side.
