{"id":592216,"date":"2019-02-15T19:47:03","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T19:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"
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Parliament for the second day failed to approve recommendations from the Privileges Committee that Assin Central legislator, Kennedy Agyapong, must"},"modified":"2019-02-15T19:47:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T19:47:03","slug":"parliament-pussyfooting-over-recommendation-to-suspend-reprimand-mp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/02\/15\/parliament-pussyfooting-over-recommendation-to-suspend-reprimand-mp\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliament pussyfooting over recommendation to suspend, reprimand MP"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Parliament for the second day failed to approve recommendations from the Privileges Committee that Assin Central legislator, Kennedy Agyapong, must be suspended or reprimanded. <\/span><\/p>\n

Approval of the Committee\u2019s report which has been pending for about five months now, was due for Tuesday but was moved to Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joy News\u2019 Parliamentary correspondent, Joseph Opoku Gakpo said,\u00a0reports that the vociferous MP has been suspended is untrue.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Committee\u2019s report right from July 2018, after it concluded its investigations on Mr Agyapong\u2019s comment, included recommendations that the MP must be sanctioned either by reprimanding or suspending him for the rest of the session. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The House is supposed to debate and approve the report before it proceeds to adopt it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak petitioned Parliament last year for action to be taken action against <\/span>Mr.<\/span><\/span> Agyapong for allegedly describing the House as useless in a TV interview, a charge the MP denies. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Agyapong was responding to comments by a New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ashanti Regional executive\u2019s comment on the Anas expos\u00e9.<\/span><\/p>\n

He contended that Muntaka Mubarak\u2019s referral was based on comments taken out of context.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kennedy Agyapong had described Muntaka Mubarak as dumb for referring him to Parliament\u2019s Privileges Committee over the purported insult.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Mubarak insisted that Assin Central MP\u2019s conduct was unfit for someone in the legislature.<\/span><\/p>\n

After being queried during the committee sittings, Mr Agyapong apologised for making contemptuous comments about the legislature in public.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But the Committee said, \u201cit has carefully considered the matter in the light of the totality of the evidence gathered and in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, the Standing Orders and other relevant enactments and concluded that the Hon. Member of for Assin Central Constituency, Mr Ken Ohene Agyapong is indeed in contempt of Parliament for the remarks he made that \u2018Parliament is cheap\u2019 and \u2018Parliament is useless\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the reporter, when the issue was tabled for debate on Tuesday, some MPs told the speaker they needed to have copies of the Committees reports before they can participate actively.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, on Wednesday, copies of the report were redistributed to members but the issue which was once again scheduled for debate never came up.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Members of the Minority, the reporter said, kept drawing the Speaker\u2019s attention to call the report on the Floor but they were ignored.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Majority later explained to Joy News that the report will be discussed and approved on Thursday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n