Business of the House was yet to commence in the morning when the Speaker stormed off the floor into her chamber in anger over the NDC MPs’ attitude towards business of the House.
Alhaji Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo, Deputy Majority Leader, had requested his colleagues from both sides of the House to let orderliness prevail as, in his view, the law-making body was becoming too chaotic.
Alhaji Pelpuo, quoting from Parliamentary Standing Orders 97 and 86, said: ‘Any member desiring to speak shall rise in his place and address the Chair, only after catching Mr. Speaker’s eye. When Mr. Speaker rises to address the House, any member standing shall immediately resume his seat and the Speaker shall be heard in silence.’
Summing up he said: ‘Madam Speaker, I am very serious about this. This is a very chaotic situation we are seeing. We often rise up without your permission, take the floor without your permission and we indulge in it in this House.’
He said he had visited other parliaments and heard a critic who described Ghana’s Parliament as chaotic because of this attitude.
‘We must stop, it must stop,’ he added.
However, Speaker Justice Bamford-Addo, who felt slighted by the comments, directed the deputy Majority Leader to retract the statement and apologize since she was firmly in control of proceedings and there was order in the House.
According to her, she was on top of her job and had always maintained orderliness in the House, contrary to Alhaji Pelpuo’s observation that there was chaos under her watch.
Mrs. Bamford Addo said: ‘Whoever described Ghana’s Parliament as chaotic does not know what he is talking about. This is a very happy place. We come, we make our views heard, we do not stop people,’ she said.
She said she wondered why he said it was chaotic. ‘There has been no fighting and the job is so strenuous that if we come with straight faces like in a classroom, we are going to die of high blood pressure.
‘I have not found a chaotic House and that is why I am going to get you to either tell us who said that or withdraw because this goes against me. I do not keep a chaotic House; I keep a happy House where in happiness we transact our business. I would not like to have it on record that it is a chaotic House and for this reason, please withdraw and then you can carry on,’ she charged.
But the Wa Central MP sought to explain himself further instead of apologizing, indicating that the comment was not just coming from him but that he was only conveying an observation that had been made by a legislator from the Parliament of Zimbabwe. ‘I do not intend indicting your competence and ability to run this House,’ he argued.
The Speaker rejected the argument by the Deputy Majority Leader and said she did not want a comparison between Ghana’s Parliament and that of Zimbabwe’s.
She insisted on a retraction and apology from the Majority side.
‘No, no do not argue, just withdraw,’ she said.
But instead of complying with the Speaker’s ruling, the Majority Leader, Cletus Avoka waded into the debate in defence of his deputy as he emphasized that his assistant only sought to draw the Speaker’s attention to the conduct of MPs, messing up the conundrum.
According to the Majority Leader, who is also the MP for Zebilla, his deputy was drawing the Speaker’s attention to the disorderly manner in which members made interjections while others were on the floor making submissions.
The Majority Leader’s intervention and his failure to allow his deputy to apologize to the House apparently angered the usually calm Speaker, compelling her to uncharacteristically walk out of the floor of the House into her chamber, leaving behind the Mace, her symbol of authority.
‘Since the Majority side is not prepared to cooperate with me, I am suspending the House,’ Speaker Justice Bamford-Addo retorted before walking out of the chamber.
Some members from the Minority side as well as their colleagues from the NDC who have always been complaining silently that the Majority Leader has been making the work of the Speaker difficult, started shouting, ‘saayoo,’ meaning the confrontation has become interesting.
In an attempt to assuage the Speaker’s feelings, Majority Leader Cletus Avoka and Minority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu immediately followed Justice Bamford-Addo to her chamber and pleaded with her to return to her seat since the Deputy Majority Leader was ready to apologize for his comments.
Having returned to her seat, Cletus Avoka led his deputy, Alhaji Pelpuo, to retract the comments and apologize to the Speaker, which she accepted in good faith.
By Awudu Mahama
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