The First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei Wusu, has justified the approval of the 2022 budget statement stating that he is a Member of Parliament and as a result his vote as an MP counts.
Addressing Parliament in a sitting to deliberate on the approved budget, Joseph Osei Wusu clarified that a Deputy Speaker could not be described as a Speaker, hence, arguments against the number of MPs in the chamber as of the time of the approval of the budget could not hold.
“There are a few matters which I wish to clarify but first, it must be clear that a Deputy Speaker is not a Speaker. Indeed, Article 96(1) of the constitution says, and I quote ‘there shall be two deputy Speakers of Parliament who shall be elected from the Members of Parliament’. I am a Member of Parliament, the Second Deputy Speaker is a Member of Parliament”.
Joseph Osei Wusu
He averred that the work of the deputy Speakers is to assist the Speaker and as such, any attempt to read and interpret the constitution to include Deputy Speakers is a misreading of the constitution. He noted that when the Speaker is not around either of the deputies can preside like any other member.
“That member does not lose his right of being a member of the House”.
Joseph Osei Wusu
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This clarification comes after the First Deputy Speaker included himself in the total number of Members of Parliament (MPs) present in the House before having the motion for the rescission of the 2022 Budget moved.
Backing the first deputy Speaker in Parliament, the Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, asked the Minority in Parliament not to mislead Ghanaians regarding the approval of the 2022 budget statement.
He noted on the floor of the House on Wednesday December 1, 2021 that “Nobody should attempt to throw dusts into the eyes of Ghanaians”. This was after the Minority argued that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs did not have the required number in Parliament to approve the budget.
Minority moves motion to overturn budget approval
The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, on the other hand moved a motion to overturn the approval of the budget. Addressing the floor of Parliament, he posited that 137 lawmakers of the Majority could not have taken a decision to approve the budget.
He noted that the Minority doesn’t consider Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Wusu, who deliberated over proceedings yesterday November 30, 2021, as Member of Parliament at the time he was sitting in as Speaker. This, he explained, left the number present at 137.
He insisted that the processes used for approving the budget on Tuesday were a betrayal of the Standing Orders of Parliament and the 1992 Constitution.
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday [Tuesday], as reported by the votes and proceedings which has been adopted, I’m begging to move that the decision which was taken yesterday [Tuesday] in adopting purportedly a budget statement subject to concessions was unconstitutional and a betrayal of our rules and standing orders and a betrayal of the 1992 constitution”.
Haruna Iddrisu
