Sitting is yet to commence in the legislature after the house resumed from a week’s break since it’s the inauguration of the 8th parliament.
The speaker, Rt Honorable Alban Bagbin, is currently locked up in a meeting with the leadership of the two sides to firm up work in the house.
Speaker to settle Majority, Minority ‘confusion’ today
The Speaker of Parliament Rt Honorable Alban Bagbin is expected to douse the tension that has arisen between the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) Members of Parliament in the House over who occupies the Majority position.
This comes after the NDC caucus dismissed assertions by the colleagues from the governing party that the NPP lawmakers are the majority side following the decision of the Fomena Independent MP to do business with them.
Haruna Iddrisu, leader of the NDC caucus said the letter written to the Speaker of Parliament by Fomena MP Mr Andrew Asiamah Amoako, did not state that he was joining NPP side in the House therefore, the governing party cannot claim to have majority seats.
The Fomena lawmaker who is also the 2nd Deputy Speaker on Wednesday January 13 officially wrote to the Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon. Alban Bagbin informing him about his decision to associate himself with the NPP caucus in Parliament.
Analysts have said this will mean, the NPP is most likely to form the Majority in Parliament pending the results of the series of court actions the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has initiated against some Parliamentary seats which were won by the NPP in the December 7 2020 elections.
At the moment, both the NPP and the NDC have 137 seats each but the the Independent MP’s decision to join the governing party will bring the difference to one.
NPP MPs show up in Parl at 4am to sit at the right-hand side of Speaker
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) caucus in Parliament Friday arrived in the House as early as 4am ostensibly to secure seats on the right-hand side of the Speaker.
Who sits on the right-hand of the speaker has always been a preserve of the majority but the exigencies of the current parliamentary composition poses a controversy both sides have taken upon themselves to outsmart each other.
Pictures from the House this dawn showed the right-hand being occupied by MPs of the NPP, while the left side was still empty. Some of the MPs were also seen in sleepy postures in their seats while waiting for business of the day to commence.
The NDC caucus had successfully pulled off a similar strategy to sit on the right-hand side of the Speaker on the night of January 6, 2021 when the 7th Parliament was going to be dissolved for the 8th to be inaugurated.
They went into the chamber earlier to assume the seats on the right, claiming to be the majority. But the numbers as it stands do not support the claims that either of the sides has a majority; the NPP and the NDC have 137 each with one seat for a Independent MP.
By 3news.com|Ghana
The post [Live updates] Parliament: Speaker locked up in meeting as 1st sitting is yet to begin appeared first on 3news.
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