The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin and the Majority New Patriotic Party (NPP) are set on a collision course over claims and counter-claims of the poor finances of the Legislature.
The Speaker last Thursday disclosed Parliament is broke and has no money to run business of the House due to delays by the Ministry of Finance to release the needed funds.
The revelation follows complaints by some members of the Minority Caucus about the availability of copies of the Annual Report on the staffing position of the Office of the President for the period January to December 2021.
The report was laid in Parliament last Wednesday for members to peruse, but copies were yet to be distributed to them.
According to the Speaker, Parliament is an arm of government and must be treated as such.
He said, “Parliament is currently being run on arrears and the House should not be treated as one of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).”
“If they want Parliament to run aground, they should let us know,” he said.
Speaker Bagbin warned that inadequate funding is affecting the business of the House and urged members not to blame him for the difficulty in getting the work of Parliament done smoothly.
“The Speaker is not ready and prepared to be blamed for the inability to get the parliamentary business going on just because we are not getting the necessary funding,” stressed.
The Majority group, however, took strong exception to the Speaker’s revelation and stressed had he exercised restraint he would have discovered the money had been released and is being processed.
Addressing the media Friday morning, Majority Chief whip Frank Annor-Dompreh revealed that the GH¢25 million cedis allocation for goods and services for Parliament that had been outstanding had been released and was going through paper works while the Speaker was lamenting to the whole world the institution was broke.
The Nsawam-Adoagyiri MP expressed surprise the Speaker went on that tangent and wondered whether the Clerk had failed to officially update him on the processes. According to him, Speaker Bagbin’s lamentation creates a certain image of the country and added, “It is not too good, especially in the face of the fact that releases have been done and was just going through the process.”
Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu also made similar comments in media interviews on the matter.
However, speaking on the floor of the House on Friday, Speaker Bagbin did not take the accusations lightly and explained his revelation caused the Finance Minister to immediately release the funds.
He warned the Majority Leader not to ever counter his (Speaker’s) comment publicly saying enough is enough.
He said, “…It is important that when the Speaker speaks from the chair, the Leader of the House that is the Leader of the Members of Parliament (Majority Leader) is not seen to be the one countering what the Spokesperson of the Arm of Government (Speaker) says. If they want us to give documentary evidence about the non-funding of the House for this year we’ll provide them. So when I heard that the Leader of the House had gone on air to say that what I said is not true, it saddens me. In response to what I said yesterday, the government proceeded to quickly release money yesterday to the House for the House to function. There’s evidence to that and that is on record.”
“I will not take the Majority Leader always going on air to counter what I say particularly when I say it on the Chair. I will not take that, I am in control here and I will continue to be in control until my term of office ends or you decide otherwise as Members to remove me as the Speaker of the House by the votes of three-quarters of the Members of the House. Please, this is the last time I will refer to it and this is enough notice to whoever thinks that he has the same authority as the Speaker. I will take this in a conclave when the House convenes Tuesday, we’ll discuss it as Leaders in a pre-sitting meeting before we sit on Tuesday. Enough is enough,” he added.