Leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) members in Parliament, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, has described the Speaker of Parliament as a smart politician.
He says the Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has his own ways of deploying his “political mischief” due to his smartness in the field of politics.
This, he said is due to the Speaker’s refusal to honour the “roll call” item on the proceedings of Parliament before adjourning the House indefinitely.
According to him, as part of the proceedings, the Speaker was supposed to conduct a roll call, up on which he would have determined whether there was a quorum or otherwise. However, Afenyo-Markin says the Speaker skipped the roll call which was the second item on the Order Paper and went ahead to adjourn the sitting.
Speaking on Accra-based JoyNews Tuesday, October 22, 2024, he said the Order Paper of the day contained item 1, which was prayers, item 2, which was the roll call he avoided and proceeded to do corrections and recite the national pledge before his formal communication.
This, is what the Effutu Member of Parliament who leads the NPP caucus says amounts to Mr. Bagbin’s political mischief to have his way in such instances.
“Mr. Speaker is a very smart politician, he has a way he does his political mischief. So he avoided the roll call then he coame to do the votes and proceedings then he ran to read the formal communication from the Chief Justice. If his intent to have established quorum, then there should have been a roll call but he avoided the roll call which is part of our proceedings if you check the order paper,” he stated.
When asked how he expected the Speaker to conduct a roll call despite his side of the House being obviously absent from the House, he said “roll call is done regardless. You don’t need everybody in the chamber before you do a roll call. So you do the roll call to establish the numbers that’s why the clerk at parliament will do the roll call. And the question that must be asked is why did the Speaker avoid the roll call?
This follows the adjournment of the House by the Speaker indefinitely, due to the lack of quorum which was not achieved in Parliament on Tuesday, October 22.
