You lied to malign my reputation – Sam George fires back at Speaker

Samuel Nartey George, the Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, has described the Rt. Hon. Speaker of the Ghanaian Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye as a liar who is bent on maligning his hard-earned reputation.

According to Sam George, the Speaker's reference to a letter he, Sam George, wrote to Mr Speaker has no basis and consequently expressed surprise at the “unfortunate” conclusions drawn by the Speaker of Parliament.

“My respect for you and your office does not erode my right and privilege to disagree with you and speak truth to you when you are wrong. You peddled falsehoods when you made particular reference to me in your closing remarks on Saturday,” Samuel Nartey George said in a "second letter" to Mr Speaker sighted by GhanaWeb.

‘Unhappy’ Dzata, as the MP is popularly called, noted that the Speaker's move is a “calculated attempt to malign his person by making false claims that you [Speaker] cannot defend to bring my reputation to public opprobrium".

The Ningo-Prampram MP observed, “You have blocked Members of Parliament from making statements on the floor of the House related to the coronavirus, you have refused to approve urgent questions to sector Ministers from the House on coronavirus,” Mr George’s letter read.

He added: “the House has sat aloof whilst the liberties of the citizenry have been eroded by a slew of Executive Instruments aimed at extending the overbearing powers of the executive”.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Ghana early March, Sam George had communicated to the Speaker through a letter that the august house of Parliament was “failing to exercise its truly intended role in crisis moments like this. I hold the strongest conviction that we are pandering whilst the flames that may engulf the Republic are being stoked.’

He explained that in moments when the executive is finding ways to combat the novel virus, the core task of the legislature is to be “solely focused on the steps the executive is taking to contain and manage the spread of the virus".

The legislature’s energy Sam George said, must be “channelled to ensuring that the people whose mandate we exercise are well informed about the protocols for surviving this scourge and that the executive whom we have been voted into office to have oversight of is acting in the best interest of the people".

He then indicated that he would not “risk exposure to the virus by coming to Parliament every day just to come and work on bills that are of no emergency nature and do not relate to Coronavirus or to come and sit and approve loans and tax waivers for private businesses, many of which are foreign”.

But the Speaker who was not impressed by the wording of Sam George’s letter partly told Parliament on Saturday:

“I inform you with, with deep regret that I have received a letter, a castigating letter, from Hon. Sam George, MP for Ningo-Prampram Constituency, which says he cannot attend on this House again because sittings of this House are just a waste of his time as the sittings at this time are only to approve loans. This is sad.”

Read Sam George’s full letter below