Joseph Osei-Owusu, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu (from left to right)
The Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has stated that the 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, did no wrong with his declaration of support for the vice president in the NPP flagebearship race.
According to him, the 1st deputy speaker is not a leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) either in parliament or the party’s national executive and is at liberty to endorse any of the candidates who will be contesting in the party’s presidential primaries.
Speaking in an Oyerepa TV interview, on Thursday, April 27, 2023, the majority leader, who is also the Member of Parliament for Suame, added that, unlike Osei-Owusu (Joe Wise), he is not at liberty to endorse any of the presidential aspirants because he is a leader in parliament and it is his job to bring all the MPs together.
“I’m the majority leader in parliament and irrespective of the person who is picked to be the party’s presidential candidate, I have to galvanise support in parliament. It is just like asking the party’s chairman or the general secretary whom they support… it will be prejudicial.
“Joe Wise is the 1st deputy speaker but when you are talking about the leadership of the parliamentary caucuses, the deputy speakers are not included.
“He (Joe Wise) can express his opinion openly but some of us must be circumspect,” he said in Twi.
In an interview earlier in April, the first deputy speaker of parliament said that majority of NPP members of parliament are behind Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in his bid to become president.
Joe Wise said he is one of the over 100 MPs supporting the presidential bid of Dr Bawumia.
“Most of the NPP MPs at the last count were about 118 MPs and I am one of them. I speak for myself and my support for Bawumia, and I know over 100 NPP MPs also support Bawumia,” he told the morning show host of Kumasi-based Oyerepa TV, Kwesi Parker-Wilson.
Watch the interview below:
Meanwhile, watch the latest episode of People and Places on GhanaWeb TV below:
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