The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has raised concern over the posture of the current leadership of Parliament.
It stated that both the Majority and Minority had failed to coordinate affairs to ensure that work went on efficiently and effectively, regardless of the hung nature of the House.
“Leadership of Parliament has been missing in this Parliament which is both sides of the House rather than focus on the Speaker,” the Foundation lamented.
Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of MFWA, bemoaned the posture of Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who is the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who had not shown what was expected of him in terms of conciliatory language, demonstrating spirit of oneness and wanting to build consensus.
He stated that he should have called Parliament along and ensured even if there were contentious issues, both sides would be able to work around it and raised concern over the posture of Majority Leader towards Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin.
Mr Braimah’s comment follows fistfight that ensued among Members of Parliament (MPs) on both sides of the House when they were voting in headcount to decide whether the e-levy bill should be considered under a certificate of urgency.
This is not the first time such an event has occurred in Parliament and it will be recalled on mid-night of January 6 through the early hours of January 7, events leading to selection of Mr Bagbin as the Speaker for the 8th Parliament turned chaotic.
According to Mr Braimah, “the Majority Leader needs to realise whether Parliament will work or not to some extent depends on him, his conduct, attitude, utterances, and to become sober and sometimes feel sad about posture of Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu towards Mr Bagbin.
“Considering what happened earlier this year, recent “embarrassing” attitude of MPs is not surprising, if you look at antecedents, beginning of 8th Parliament, you will conclude what we saw on Monday is not surprising and possibly issues may even get worse as we go along.
“Apart from that, we have also been witnessing consistent abuse of laws as though it is okay to break them with impunity and we are gradually getting into situation where there is complete mistrust for our Parliament and MPs in terms of service to the people,” Mr Braimah warned. –myjoyonline.com
