The proposal to change the leadership of the Majority caucus in Parliament wouldn’t have sufficed even if the discussion had come up during the NEC meeting of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, the Asante Akyem North Member of Parliament holding this position says he, together with majority of the caucus membership, would have kicked against it should it have come up at the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting Monday, February 19, 2024.
There were reports of a possible reshuffle in the Majority leadership. Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu was said to have been replaced by his Deputy Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin.
But the decision which was item 5 on the agenda for the meeting was skipped, after which First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu, addressed the media to announce that the caucus was not in support of the idea of changing the leadership.
“I would not have supported it. Indeed we didn’t contemplate discussions that would lead to any change,” Andy Appiah-Kubi told Alfred Ocansey on Ghana Tonight Tuesday, February 20, 2024 on TV3.
According to the legislator, apart from them not supporting the directive, it is also against the new Standing Orders of Parliament for persons outside the House to choose leadership for them.
“And in any case, I was also informed that the current position of the law was that members of Parliament would select their leaders in Parliament and leaders were going to be selected to perform in Parliament. So I couldn’t see how and why somebody else outside the House was going to select leaders to perform in the House contrary to the rules of engagement in the House per the Standing Orders,” he outlined.
Meanwhile, the position of the Standing Orders, according to Mr. Appiah-Kubi, gives room for outsiders to make proposals for MPs to consider but cannot impose.
“Everybody has the power to propose for the consideration of the Members in Parliament. There is nobody outside the House who has a mandate to demand. So the party could make a proposal for consideration but they cannot impose and the moment that the members agree with the proposal, it will so happen.
“Even Members of Parliament –be it persons or group of persons — would not have that mandate except all of us acting together as a caucus, we have the capacity and the mandate to select our leaders as a caucus,” he clarified.
The MP explained further that whatever opposition that would have greeted the proposition, if it was true, would have been a unanimous one.
“I’m sure that if ever anybody made such a proposition, it would be only just a proposition for consideration. But if somebody made a publication that we have selected these group of people to lead the party, we would not submit to it and this decision is unanimous. Majority of the caucus would not submit to the proposition,” he stated.
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