Act as statesmen – Speaker admonishes losing NPP MPs

Speaker of Parliament Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye has admonished members who lost their party’s primaries over the weekend to be diligent and perform their duties with “promptness” from now till the end of the year.

He said the outcome of the primaries is usual of politics and so they should not let the defeat affect their contributions to proceedings in the House.

The members of the Majority Caucus in Parliament were up for contests on Saturday, June 20 in their party New Patriotic Party’s primaries to elect candidates for the December 7 elections.

Over 60 of them including the Leader of the Caucus, Osei Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu, were not contested as they sailed through unopposed.

But over 40 members including six sub-committee chairmen lost their bids to represent the NPP in the parliamentary elections.

Among these are the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah for New Juaben South Constituency, and Chairman of the Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Ben Banda Abdallah, who lost his candidature in Offinso South Constituency.

Addressing members on Tuesday at the start of business, Speaker Oquaye told the losing MPs “as far as matters of the House are concerned, you must act as statesmen and assume some circumspection in all we do and in all that we say”.

He congratulated those who emerged winners and wished the losers well, encouraging them not to relent in their efforts at helping the government in national development.



“We are in a very competitive situation and in fact one thing we should all realise is that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.”

He admonished all other MPs – at both sides of the aisle – that even if their party loses the general elections, they have a role to play either as the Minority or the Majority.

“And so I will say let us all attend to the business of the House with all seriousness and with all promptness.”