Agalga raises red flag over Holiday Bill

Ranking Member on the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament, James Agalga, is accusing the Majority of flouting Parliament’s standing orders by laying the controversial public holidays bill on the Floor of the House without his input.

The bill after passage will introduce two new holidays, 7 January and 4 August, to the existing ones in the country. Founder's Day, hitherto celebrated on 21 September, has been moved to 4 August, this a cross-section of Ghanaians including the Minority believe is an attempt to rewrite the country’s history.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Class 91.3FM’s Parliamentary Correspondent, Ekow Annan, Mr Agalga who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Builsa North, said he'll employ all options at his disposal to have the report sent back to the Committee for further work.

“I’m not aware of the laying of the report because the committee is yet to consider the report and approve of same. So, any purported laying of that report is in violation of the standing orders and at the right time when we are called upon to debate the report, I'll raise the necessary objections for the report to be referred back to the committee,” he said.

But Chairman of the Committee, Seth Kwame Acheampong, said the accusation from the Minority is not valid.

“The committee duly met on the referral the Speaker gave us, we had to go through our procedures. We did go through our procedures, I think we are at the plenary level now, at every stage of the meeting we sat with the Minority,” he stated.

Mr Acheampong pointed out that when the committee received members of the public who submitted proposals on the new holidays, the committee “sat with the full complement of the Minority”.