The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has warned Members of Parliament (MPs) to keep quiet and listen to him when he speaks during proceedings in the House on Thursday, March 31.
He stated that interjecting the Speaker while he is speaking is a form of contempt of parliament, and that he will be forced to begin citing MPs who engage in such behavior for contempt of court.
“When the speaker is speaking and you are speaking at the same time, that is contempt,” he said.
“I will be forced to mention names in the coming days, and that is a serious matter,” he added.
There was heated debate among lawmakers in the House due to some errors that occurred on the votes and proceedings during the approval of the e-levy on Tuesday March 29.
Mr Bagbin apologized to the MPs for the errors after admitting that indeed the errors did occur. He took ultimate responsibility for the mistakes.
He said on the floor on Thursday March 31 that the clerk is only a civil servant and asked that claims that the clerk is partisan be deleted from the records.
“If you look at the attendance book definitely, there are errors, I will take responsibility and apologize to members for these errors,” he said.
Mr Bagbin further indicated that there is no perfect votes and proceedings which is an official report capturing Parliamentary debate, anywhere in the world.
Errors, he said, are anticipated to occur hence, provisions have been made available to correct those mistakes.
He said this after the Minority had said errors were made on the votes of proceedings for Tuesday’s sitting when the e-levy was approved by the House.
The Speaker commended the Minority lawmakers for bringing this up for the necessary corrections to be made.
“There not votes and proceedings anywhere that are perfects,” Mr Bagbin said adding that “…the draft is brought to the house giving opportunity to members to right the wrongs that they have been captured on the votes and proceedings.”
- There are no perfect votes or proceedings anywhere in the world – Bagbin
- E-levy: If we had voted, the majority would have been 137 votes against 136 votes for the minority – Ayariga
“So rightly you have come and corrected, what you have done is right, we will go through properly and correct the errors,” he said.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawmakers have sued the Attorney General following the approval of the e-levy by Parliament on Tuesday March 29.
The Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu described the approval as illegal and unconstitutional because in their view, the Majority did not have the right numbers to pass it.
“This is a charade,” he said at a press conference in Parliament, adding that “there is no E-levy.”
“The majority of less than 137 conducting businesses only proceeded on illegal and unconstitutional business. Parliament did not have the numbers to take any decision that should binding Parliament and Ghanaians,” he added.
They therefore decided to sue over the development.
