Parliament has been rubbished – Atta Akyea

Ghana’s parliament has been rubbished by its speaker’s decision to dismiss a motion that requested the legislative body to investigate the Ford Expedition gift to the country’s President John Mahama, an MP has claimed.

According to the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South constituency, Samuel Atta Akyea, the “legislature has been rubbished by the conduct of the Speaker.”

Parliament was recalled from break on September 1 to consider a motion to constitute a special Parliamentary Committee to investigate the ford saga which has generated headlines in the last months.

The motion dated August 3, 2016 wanted the said committee to look at whether the President of Ghana received a Ford Expedition Vehicle from a Burkinabe Contractor, whether the Ford said vehicle received by the President infringes any law of Ghana and whether the vehicle donated to the President infringes his own code of conduct.

However, the Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho on Thursday rejected the motion and adjourned the house sine die amidst shouts of “shame!” from the Minority.

Commenting on the issue on 3fm’s Sunrise morning show, Mr Atta Akyea described the speakers ruling as one which has rubbished the legislature.

“The legislature has been rubbished today by the conduct of the speaker because if you know all the technical issues raised, they were intended to come from the members of parliament from the majority side so you could see that the speaker was doing the argument from the majority side and that is very unfortunate.

“As it were what the speaker has done is that he is speaking for the NDC with all respect and he is reading the constitution upside down and He is thinking that CHRAJ could have more power than parliament.

“The people should realise that if there is an incompetent motion, it is for them to reason and you as the empire or the referee will rule on it as to whether or not the motion is competent or somebody wants to question the propriety of the motion the motion standing before the house is an argument that you can make,” Mr Atta Akyea said.