By: Henrietta Afful
The Deputy Minority Chief Whip and Member of Parliament for Banda, Ibrahim Ahmed maintains that the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin acted to uphold the sanctity of the House.
Parliament on Friday, November 26, 2021 rejected the Budget following a series of heated exchanges between Parliamentarians from the Majority and Minority side.
This led to a walk-out by the Majority who accused the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin of “bias” and “disrespect”.
Proceedings continued despite the walk-out. The Minority with 137 of its members present in Parliament voted to reject the 2022 Budget.
Reacting to the decision, the Majority described the conduct of the Speaker as ‘unconstitutional’ but the Deputy Minority Chief Whip and Member of Parliament for Banda, Ibrahim Ahmed, says the Minority will not rescind its decision on the rejection of the 2022 Budget Statement of government.
Speaking on the ‘Breakfast Show’ on November 30, 2021 the Deputy Minority Chief Whip said they did what was right as a Parliament.
He called on the Majority to retract what they said.
”Challenging the Constitutionality of the Speaker’s conduct and ruling will only prolong matters and send Ghana into a tighter corner”, he said.
The Deputy Minority Chief Whip insists that the Minority followed due process, hence their actions cannot be termed ‘unconstitutional’.
The Member of Parliament for Banda said the attitude of the Majority in challenging the conduct of the Speaker paints a bad image for the country.
He said five mid-year reviews and five budgets have been approved by the Minority since the assumption of power by the Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo led Administration and if the sixth one has been rejected, the Majority should be deeply concerned over why it was rejected.
He noted that the aim of the Minority Caucus in Parliament is not to obstruct the business of government.
“Even when we were challenging the results of the 2020 Elections in the Supreme Court, that was the era they brought the 2021 Budget. Did we reject it? Did we boycott it? We passed it for you because Ghana must move on and the government must progress” the Chief Whip added.
On the issue of whether Parliament had the right quorum to enable it to make a decision, the Legislature said “…when the Speaker sits in his Chair, it takes somebody to identify that the House has the right quorum”.
He said the Minority was not present and even if they were there, they did not raise any objection on the numbers present.
