News:
March 11, 2018
Member of Parliament for Effutu Alexander Afenyo-Markin has cautioned his colleague from Adaklu, Kwame Agbodza in his crusade to ensure that MPs come to work on time, not to make it look like MPs do not come to work on time.
According to the Effutu legislator his good friend he has a lot of respect for has not situated his concern properly because there are committee meeting in Parliament as early as 8:00am and 9:00am.
Again there are pre-sitting engagement by leadership of the House to build consensus on issues before they come to the floor of the House. The MP who contributed to this debate on the floor of the House noted that late start of the House cannot be blame on the Speaker because in is always early to the chamber, he said.
The Effutu law maker noted that, sometimes unavoidable engagement contributes to the House starting late, these are not new since “you and I entered this chamber 2003 you and I know this”.
MP for Bodi Sampson Ahi, noted that as early as 8:00am members of the works and Housing committee were in the chamber last week and had to leave for a field trip out of the chamber.
It is equally, “dangerous” for the impression to be created that majority of us do not come to the chamber early, rather we have only few people coming late to the House.
Mr. Kwame Agbodza has been pointing out the issues of late start of the House for almost a month now, lamenting over a situation where school children travel overnight from the North and other parts of the country only to meet them start proceedings late.
These children get “here as early as 9:00am they do not see MPs they go back”, what impression do we think they would have about MPs Whiles the leave the chamber around 11:00am, “we have not started sitting”, he lamented.
Meanwhile the Speaker Professor Mike Oquaye commended the Adaklu legislator for raising the issue on the floor of the House.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com