Defying ban on placards, most uncultured - Mensah Bonsu tells Minority MPs

The Majority Leader in Parliament Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu has described some of his colleagues on the minority side as ‘uncultured’ lawmakers for defying ban on placards.

The minority on Thursday defied their leadership’s decision by displaying placards with the inscription ‘419 Budget’ during the budget presentation by the finance minister Ken Ofori Atta.

He lashed out at them for dragging the name of Parliament into disrepute with their ‘noisy’ posture.

Speaking with Lantam Papanko on Ultimate Breakfast Show, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs questioned the message the minority MPs intended to send to their wards and the international community who were watching and listening to them on TV and radio.

The Member of Parliament for Suame Constituency wondered why the minority displayed the placards and spewed ‘venom’ when the finance minister had not even read the budget.

He observed that the minority disregarded the caution by their chief whip Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak when he signalled them to hide their placards.

The lawmaker questioned why MPs should be allowed placards in the house when demonstrators and non MPs are not allowed to do so.

He admitted that both the majority and minority MPs in one way or the other in the past had displayed placards amidst singing in the House saying it was totally wrong for the minority to rebel against the directive aimed at bringing sanity to the house during budget reading.

He indicated that unprinted words such as ‘Oh so ho, wo boa’ are not allowed in any serious Parliament in the world asking if they will have the moral rights to advise their kids when they go wrong.

‘I have always said that it is very un-Ghanaian to display placards in Parliament, I don’t think it is doing the image of Parliament any good… Before the finance minister gets to read the budget, even when you have not even listened to a sentence, you display placards with inscription 419 budget. What does it shows, and I told them that Ghanaians will know the difference between us and them but they are proving to be sheer obstructionists. We are supposed to be role models, you rise up making wild gestures, its most unparliamentary, most uncultured.

Every Parliament has a place of heckling, the person says something, you say no, no, because you think that the point he has made doesn’t sits well with you, or maybe contrary to something else, no, no. If the person makes a point and you agree with him, you say yeah yeah, these things are allowed in ever parliament, but be shouting across the aisle, using unprinted words ‘Oh so ho, wo boa’, what is that, the language people are employing these days, is wrong,’ he fumed.

An incensed lawmaker indicated that the leadership of the house will take decision as to whether the laws will be applied on the MPs who flouted their directive or not.