By Godwill Arthur-Mensah
Accra, July 18, GNA-Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business, has defended the Business Committee of Parliament’s decision to comply with the time allocations for asking questions and for reading statements in the House.
He said that decision would help reduce the duration spent in the Chamber.
During a debate on the Business Statement for week eight, ending Friday, July 25, 2025, Mr Ayariga, Chairman of the Business Committee, said the decision was intended to safeguard the health and wellbeing of Members of Parliament (MPs).
“This is to reduce the burden and stress on MPs because sitting for long hours and deep into the night sometimes closing at 10 pm and 11 pm has serious health implications on our health.
“At one point when we were considering the Scholarships Authority Bill, I received text messages from MPs, begging me to come and save them because of the long hours they have been sitting.
“So, I’m not being a dictator or suppressing anyone, but for the sake of our health and to stop losing colleagues all of a sudden,”Mr Ayariga stated.
The proposal from the Committee was that an hour is to be spent on asking and answering questions each day while an hour will be used for reading statements with an average of three statements from MPs per day.
Then, three hours reserved for doing government business, bringing the total hours for parliamentary sitting per day to five hours.
The Majority Leader indicated that those time allocations had been clearly spelt out in the Standing Orders 77(2), 94 and 216 respectively.
Earlier, Professor Kingsley Nyarko, the Member for Kwadaso, expressed some reservations about the recommendations in the Business Statement and asked the leadership of the House to allow MPs to exercise their oversight over the executive arm of government to promote transparency and accountability.
GNA
Edited By Lydia Kukua Asamaoh