Minority Unhappy With Speaker Mike Oquaye

Sitting in Parliament has resumed after the Minority walked out in protest over what it describes as disrespect to its leadership by the Speaker, Prof. Mike Oquaye.

As the House prepared to continue its debate on the 2018 budget that was presented by the Finance Minister, Member of Parliament for Ellembelle, Emmanuel Kofi Buah was called to speak.

However, Member of Parliament for Asawase Muntaka Mubarak and the Minority’s Deputy Chief Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim wanted to make an intervention before the Ellembelle MP is allowed to speak.

But the Speaker ignored their request and urged the Ellembelle MP to speak.

As Joy News’ Joseph Opoku Gakpo reports “Muntaka Mubarak and his deputy chief whip were on their feet and indicating that they needed to draw the Speaker’s attention to an earlier concern, but the speaker did not allow them to speak and went ahead to call Emmanuel Kofi Buah, the former energy Minister to commence the debate on the energy sector

“But Kofi Buah said he respectfully wasn’t going to start the debate because his leaders were up on their feet and wanted to speak over concerns that the Minority had,” Joseph reported.

The Speaker then said that if Kofi Buah wasn’t going to speak, he was going to give the opportunity to those on the Majority side to do so.

The Minority believes this was disrespectful, and they registered their displeasure with shouts of protest followed by a walk out and an eventual suspension of sitting by the Speaker.

The leadership of the House met with the Speaker over the issue and sitting has resumed, Joseph reported.

The Minority has been allowed to raise their concerns which had to do with the Legislative Instrument (LI) on the creation of new districts laid last week.

They want the LI withdrawn because there was an error.

Prior to the suspension of sitting however, the Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko disclosed that the Committee set up to investigate the BOST fuel contamination saga is almost ready with its report.

He said the government will soon issue a white paper on the report and then it will be made available to the public.

Mr Agyarko said interim measures have been put in place to ensure such contamination does not occur again.