{"id":1161522,"date":"2022-07-29T09:39:55","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T09:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/07\/29\/dome-kwabenya-seat-shouldve-been-declared-vacant\/"},"modified":"2022-07-29T09:39:55","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T09:39:55","slug":"dome-kwabenya-seat-shouldve-been-declared-vacant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/07\/29\/dome-kwabenya-seat-shouldve-been-declared-vacant\/","title":{"rendered":"Dome Kwabenya seat should&#8217;ve been declared vacant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Deputy Majority Chief Whip in Parliament, Iddrisu Habib, says Speaker Albert Bagbin\u2019s anticipated ruling on the fate of Sarah Adwoa Safo\u2019s membership of Parliament may only be for educational purposes.<\/p>\n<p>He insists that the House Committee on Privileges has already taken a conclusive decision on the matter, and no precedent can overturn that.<\/p>\n<p>The embattled Dome-Kwabenya MP was relieved of her executive appointment as Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister after months of public outbursts against her continuous stay in office in absentia.<\/p>\n<p>That notwithstanding, parliamentary processes triggered for her removal as a Member of Parliament remain hanging, as Speaker Bagbin <strong>deferred a decision on the matter till October<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Deputy Majority Chief Whip told <strong>Citi News<\/strong> that the Dome Kwabenya seat is vacant by operation of law, and the Speaker\u2019s ruling cannot change that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Speaker\u2019s delay in giving a ruling is perhaps to give us education. I think that based on the recommendations and conclusion of the committee and the supremacy of the constitution, the Dome Kwabenya seat should be declared vacant as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Speaker deferred his ruling on Sarah Adwoa Safo, who has been cited for absenteeism saying,\u00a0 he needed time to submit a written ruling.<\/p>\n<p>At stake was whether the Dome Kwabenya seat would have been declared vacant after Adwoa Safo did not honour her summons by the Privileges Committee, which considered her absenteeism.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking after a debate <strong>on the report by the Privileges Committee<\/strong>, Mr. Bagbin insisted that, \u201cI cannot in the haste of today give you a ruling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe good people of Dome Kwabenya need to be represented in the house. Their voices need to be heard in the house but that hasn\u2019t happened. Even this business that was just adjourned, she didn\u2019t even make a single appearance in the Chamber and no explanation has been given\u201d, Iddrisu Habib stressed.<\/p>\n<p>Under the circumstances, Mr. Bagbin said there was a need to suspend sitting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn return [from recess], I will deliver the written ruling,\u201d Mr. Bagbin assured.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"Ihv_SLJ5A1c\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Adwoa Safo\u2019s witch-hunting accusations surprising, regrettable \u2013 Majority Leader\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ihv_SLJ5A1c?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Privileges Committee had delivered a split decision on the fate of Adwoa Safo who has been absent and out of Ghana beyond the mandatory 15 days without permission.<\/p>\n<p>According to a copy of the report, the Majority wants the seat declared vacant while the Minority jumped to the defence of the absentee MP, saying she still needed to be given a chance to explain herself.<\/p>\n<p>The Majority MPs on the committee cited Article 97 (1) (c) of the 1992 Constitution and the Court of Appeal decision in the case of Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare v the Attorney General &#038; 3 Ors, in this regard.<\/p>\n<p>The committee however determined that the excuse from her two other colleagues, Kennedy Agyepong and Henry Quartey for absenting themselves were reasonable.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament watchdog Odekro\u2019s analysis pegs Sarah Adwoa Safo\u2019s absence at 40 missed sittings.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Joy News from the US, back in May, she attributed her long absence from Parliament to family issues, saying, among others, that <strong>her son was unwell<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Adwoa Safo also accused some Minority MPs members and a number of her colleague Majority MPs of engaging in a political witch hunt with her as the target.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Deputy Majority Chief Whip in Parliament, Iddrisu Habib, says Speaker Albert Bagbin\u2019s anticipated ruling on the fate of Sarah Adwoa Safo\u2019s membership of Parliament may only be for educational purposes. He insists that the House Committee on Privileges has already taken a conclusive decision on the matter, and no precedent can overturn that. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1161524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[5032,7591,4448,7757,21721,2988],"class_list":["post-1161522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-declared","tag-dome","tag-kwabenya","tag-seat","tag-shouldve","tag-vacant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}