Speaker’s dissatisfaction with dismissal to probe COVID-19 expenditure apt – Inusah Fuseini

Inusah Fuseini, a former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, has defended the Speaker of Parliament’s dissatisfaction with a dismissal of a private member’s motion seeking to probe the government’s COVID-19 expenditure.

He said Joseph Osei-Owusu, the First Deputy Speaker had on several occasions taken decisions in a manner that contravened the Standing Orders of the House.

“I cannot understand the basis for Mr Osei-Owusu’s actions, unless of course, he thinks he ought to have been the Speaker and not Alban Bagbin because he is overturning decisions made by the Speaker and that is not by the Standing Orders of the House,” MrFuseini explained.

The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu; the Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka and the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee, DrAto Forson, filed the motion which sought to constitute a bi-partisan parliamentary committee chaired by a member of the Minority to probe COVID-19 expenditure and the Private Member’s Motion was captured in the order paper for November 4, 2021.

But Mr Osei-Owusu while presiding in the stead of Mr Bagbin on February 22, 2022, dismissed the motion, saying “the work of such a bi-partisan committee is already provided for by the 1992 Constitution, to be conducted by the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee.

However, Mr Fuseini pointed out that the First Deputy Speaker’s refusal to allow for the motion to be debated exposed his bias since issues of that nature must be resolved by debate in Parliament and when a motion was debated, members were asked whether or not they supported the establishment of an ad-hoc committee and if the ‘yes’ had the votes an ad-hoc committee was set up and the issue ends.

He suggested review of the Standing Orders of Parliament to prevent recurrence of such developments and also consolidate the hierarchy of Speakership, review the standing orders and provide clear rules to regulate the conduct of the Speaker, First Deputy Speaker, Second Deputy Speaker, or any other person. –citinewsroom.com