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Thursday, January 15, 2009

I have had my baptism-Speaker tells House

"Indeed I have had my baptism," was the way The Speaker of Parliament, Joyce Bamford-Addo put it as she went through the process to master work in parliament.

She made the point yesterday while adjourning the House for the first recess of the first sitting of the 5th Parliament in Accra. She thanked members for their cooperation and support which made her responsibility as the Speaker possible.

She urged members to use the vacation, especially the new entrants to study the Parliamentary Standing Orders. "Honourable Members, as you depart to your respective constituencies for this short holiday, I urge you, especially the new ones, to use the opportunity to go through the Standing Orders of the House, among other documents in the Legislature in order to familiarize yourselves with the procedures of the House as I would also be doing," she added. She wished them God's guidance and good rest.

The House, which should have started its business at 10:00 am rather started at 12:15 pm because of the late arrival of the Speaker. Corrections to the previous sittings were the main business of the day in which Hon. Baladu Manu insisted on the correction of a point which was misrepresented in the report.

According to him the Speaker said "I have the discretionary powers" which was answered "We are in parliament" and The Speaker answered as, "And so what." His argument was that the last phrase "And so what" was omitted in the report which he said must be corrected.

The Majority Leader Hon. Alban Bagbin assured him that the document would be crosschecked with the recorded version of the previous proceedings and the necessary corrections done.

The speaker on her part stated that "we are not here to argue about who said what and other wise", however, several corrections were made even where members names were misspelled. The House closed for the recess after the issues were settled.

In a related development, the minority side of the House met the press to officially introduce the new leaders of the minority.

Addressing them, the Minority Leader, Hon Kyei Mensah Bonsu said the NPP which was in the majority in the pervious parliament was now in the minority. "In the past, we were on the right side of the House but now we find ourselves on the left," he said.

He said the appointment of care taker Ministers who assumed responsibility at some Ministries was a matter of concern to the minority.

He said according to the constitution -article 78 gave the mandate to parliament to vet and give approval to Ministers appointed by the President before they assume office. He said the minority was worried as to how to hold these care-taker Ministers accountable if there was any problem.

He wondered how parliament would have over-sight responsibility over these caretaker Ministers since they were not vetted.

Commenting on whether the President had been well inaugurated or not, Hon. Kyei Bonsu said some people who were very critical were of the view that since President John Atta Mills substituted some of the words in the official document of the Presidential oath, they assumed he had not been inaugurated. However, he wondered whether Ghanaians could hold him accountable for that.

He mentioned the Minority leadership of the House as Hon. Ambrose Derry, MP for Lawra/Nandom as the Deputy Minority Leader while the Minority Chief Whip is Hon. Opare-Ansah Frederick, MP for Suhum. He said the First and the Second Deputy Chief Whips were Hon. Kusi Gifty Eugenia, MP for Tarkwa-Nsuaem and Hon Aye Benjamin Kofi, MP for Upper Denkyira West respectively.

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