Parliament approves advisors to Speaker

Page 14, Sat Jan 31, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

PARLIAMENT has approved the selection of five Members of Parliament to advise the Speaker on the appointment of members of the Parliamentary Service Board.
They are, Mr Alban Bagbin, Majority Leader; Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu, Minority Leader; Mr John Akologu Tia, Deputy Majority Leader; Mrs Elizabeth Tetteh-Amoah, NDC MP for Twifo-Ati Morkwaa and Papa Owusu-Ankomah, NPP MP for Sekondi.
The selection of the MPs to advise the Speaker is in accordance with Clause 2 (b) of Article 124 of the 1992 Constitution and section 5 of the Parliamentary Service Act (Act 460).
Mr Bagbin moved the motion for the approval of the selection of the MPs and his motion was seconded by the Deputy Minority Leader, Mr Ambrose Dery.
Meanwhile, the issue as to who is the Leader of the House resurfaced in Parliament again.
The issue arose when a motion on the approval of the five selected MPs to advise the Speaker on the appointment of members of the Parliamentary Service Board, stood in the name of the Majority Leader and Leader of the House.
When Papa Owusu-Ankomah caught the eye of the Speaker, he said it was strange that although the NDC refused to recognise all Majority Leaders during the Fourth Parliament as Leaders of the House, they had bestowed the same title on Mr Bagbin now that their party (NDC) was in the Majority.
Contributing to the issue, the MP for New Juaben North, Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman said although it was a convention that Majority Leaders in all jurisdictions were also leaders of the House, Parliament should affirm that the Majority Leader is the Leader of the House for posterity sake.
For his part, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stated that there was no doubt that the Majority Leader was the leader of the House.
“The only problem is that when they were in the Minority, they did not find it fit to recognise the then Majority Leader as the Leader of the House,” he said.
When he caught the eye of the Speaker, Mr Bagbin explained that the question as to who was the leader of the House had been an issue right from the First Parliament of the Fourth Republic, until it was settled during the Fourth Parliament of the Fourth Republic with the involvement of the civil society.