James Agalga has accepted the office of Majority Leader with a pledge to build consensus with the Minority Bench, telling the House he will reach out, consult and make compromises where necessary.
The Member of Parliament for Builsa North delivered his acceptance speech on the floor as Parliament adjourned on Friday, bringing to a close the emergency sitting Speaker Alban Bagbin recalled the House to attend.
The speech ends a week in which Hon. James Agalga’s own standing was the first order of contention. He takes over leadership of government business from Mahama Ayariga, who left the front bench after Parliament approved his appointment as Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs.
A Week That Began With a Ruling Against Him
Hon. James Agalga arrived at Monday’s sitting as the President’s announced choice and found that the announcement counted for nothing procedurally.
Speaker Bagbin ruled that President John Dramani Mahama’s communication of the appointment did not follow parliamentary procedure, holding that the President has no authority to convey a change in the leadership of a parliamentary caucus to the Speaker.
Under the Standing Orders, the Majority Leader is a Member designated by the Majority Caucus as its leader in the House, and any change must be communicated by the General Secretary of the party concerned. Until that happened, the Speaker said, Mahama Ayariga remained the recognised Majority Leader and would keep his seat.
The National Democratic Congress supplied the missing step the same day. General Secretary Fifi Fiavi Kwetey wrote to the Speaker in a letter dated 24 August confirming that Agalga had been appointed following consultations between the party leadership and the Presidency, and stating that the appointment took immediate effect.
Consensus First, But the Reset Agenda Stands
The substance of Hon. James Agalga’s speech was an offer to the other side of the House. He assured Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin and the Minority Bench that his approach would hinge first on consensus building and committed himself in plain terms to reaching out and consulting.
He paired the offer with a limit. Alongside the promise of compromise, he said he would work to ensure the President’s Reset Agenda is accomplished, and told his own front bench he would be spirited in providing the leadership needed to see government business thrive in the House.
The balance he described will be tested quickly. The Minority spent this week pressing for a parliamentary inquiry into more than $1.7 billion in losses the International Monetary Fund documented against the Bank of Ghana’s gold purchase programme, and the caucus has said it does not intend to let the matter rest when the House returns.
Deference to the Speaker and to His Predecessor
Agalga was candid about inexperience in the role, describing the position as a learning curve and saying he would draw on the Speaker’s judgement in the conduct of business.
He noted that Bagbin has occupied both leadership benches before reaching the Chair, having served as Minority Leader and as Majority Leader, and credited him with holding the House together. “Your wisdom and experience are what have kept this House together,” he told the Speaker, commending the cohesion Speaker Bagbin has fostered across the aisle.
He also turned to Hon. Mahama Ayariga, noting that his predecessor leaves the leadership but not the Chamber, and said he would continue to rely on him for support and guidance. He extended similar deference to colleagues on the Majority front bench, telling them he would learn from their longer service with humility.
Courting the Clerk and the Press Corps
Two further constituencies drew specific mention. Hon. James Agalga assured the Parliamentary Service and the Clerk to Parliament of his cooperation in advancing parliamentary democracy, and said he would lean heavily on them for research and for matters touching the administration of the House.
His address to Clerk Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror was personal. The two were contemporaries at the Faculty of Law and at the Ghana School of Law, and Agalga described him as a crack hand whose support he would count on.
He closed by thanking the Parliamentary Press Corps for its work and promising that journalists covering the House would find a worthy partner in the new leadership, adding that he would count on their support in turn.
Hon. James Agalga has represented Builsa North Constituency in the Upper East Region since January 2013, making him one of the longer-serving Members on the Majority side.
A lawyer trained at the University of Ghana, he served as Deputy Minister for the Interior under the previous Mahama administration and built his parliamentary profile on defence and interior matters, including questions of police oversight and the treatment of journalists.
That background gives him a working relationship with the security committees but limited exposure to the business management side of the House, which is the substance of the job he has taken on.
What the Emergency Sitting Delivered
The five-day recall, directed by the Speaker under Order 58(4) of the Standing Orders of Parliament, ran from Monday and closed at noon on Friday. It came less than four weeks after Parliament adjourned sine die on 31 July at the end of a meeting marked by repeated clashes between the caucuses.
Across the week, the House approved Hon. Mahama Ayariga and Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings as Ministers of State, adopted the Appointments Committee report on the President’s five nominees to the Fiscal Council, and took up Supreme Court nominations and the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (Amendment) Bill.
Members now return to recess. Hon. James Agalga has the interval before the House resumes to work out how far his consensus offer extends when the Minority brings the gold losses back to the floor.
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