#Dropthatchamber: I’d have 'slapped Ernesto for shameful, wrong behaviour' - Adei

The Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) Professor Stephen Adei has condemned the leader of the Economic Fighters League, Mr Ernesto Yeboah, for disrupting parliament with his #Dropthatchamber protest in connection with plans by the Parliamentary Service Board to put up a 450-seat chamber for the legislature.

Prof Adei said he would have slapped Mr Yeboah were he his brother for shouting “Drop that chamber” from the public gallery of parliament during a session on the proposed new chamber.

Mr Yeboah and his colleague, Mr Abeiku Adams, were arrested by the Police Protection Unit of Parliament in collaboration with the Marshals Department and dragged to parliament’s district police headquarters after disrupting the business of the house earlier this month.

Mr Yeboah yelled after Mr K. T. Hammond, the MP for Adansi-Asokwa had said: “Parliament won’t sit under trees” in connection with the proposal to build the $200-million chamber.

In an interview with Benjamin Akakpo on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Wednesday, 17 July 2019, Prof Adei described what Mr Yeboah did as “shameful and wrong”.

“I think what the young man did in parliament was shameful and wrong. I don’t think that you have to be rude and disruptive in order to make a point. Because of what I’m saying, it shouldn’t appear that I support him because if he were my brother, I would have gone there and slapped him and say that: ‘Please, mum and dad didn’t teach us to behave that way,’” Prof Adei said.

The former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) added: “I’m a man of strong views but it doesn’t mean you insult parliament and shout at them; [why? Don’t you have elders in your house?]”

Prof Adei, however, added his voice to support the many Ghanaians, politicians and civil society organisations that kicked against the construction of the new $200-million edifice.

He said: “That put aside, I think that that cost of the building, and I’m saying as someone who has been building, it is not that expensive but it is wrong at this time in terms of national priorities and the needs of this nation. To say we’ve given you this place to meet and you’re going to spend about a quarter of a billion dollars when we cannot do roads, it shows a sense of insensitivity and I think the reaction of the media, even the rude one, is a good message to our politicians that Ghanaians will not tolerate them…”