Majority, Minority tango over review budget

An entrenched position taken by the Minority in Parliament on the delivery of a statement by the Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, yesterday brought parliamentary proceedings to a halt for more than three hours.

Try as he did, the Majority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin, failed to impress on the Minority to allow Mr Terkper to address the House on recent developments regarding the drastic drop in crude oil prices on the world market and its effects on the 2015 budget.

The Minority was of the view that the move by the minister to deliver a “review of the 2015 budget” was procedurally flawed and an attempt at ambushing the House into accepting new budgetary proposals.

Attempts by the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, to muscle his way through the situation, contending that that was not the first time something of that kind was occurring and supporting it with relevant procedures, were halted by the vociferous opposition of the Minority.

Majority calls for break

Ultimately, Mr Bagbin had to eat humble pie and appeal to the Speaker for a 30-minute break in order to consult with the leadership of the Minority to resolve the matter.

But that 30-minute break was to last for three hours.

Events leading to the stalemate began last week when it was advertised as part of the proceedings of the House that the Finance Minister would deliver a review of the 2015 budget statement to it yesterday.

But when the House convened yesterday, the programme for the day was silent on the delivery of a review of the budget until Mr Bagbin intimated that the Minister of Finance was in the House to do so.

That drew a non-compliance response from the Minority who, through its leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, said the permission for Mr Terkper to do so ought to be arrived at through a motion.

Clearly, the Minority had more members present and believed that putting the matter to vote would inure to its advantage.

The more Mr Bagbin spoke, the more his utterances were greeted with a strong chorus of ‘Motion! Motion!! Motion!!!’

When the Speaker finally restored order, he quoted from the Standing Order and said “a Minister of State may make an announcement or a statement of government policy. Any such announcement or statement should be limited to facts which it deemed necessary to make known to the House and should not be designed to provoke debate at this stage. Any member may comment briefly, subject to the same limitations”.

That notwithstanding, the Minority would not budge and kept on with the agitation for a motion to be moved in that regard.

Calm returns

After the three-hour break when the MPs returned, some calm was restored, following which the Minority Leader said the business of the House for each day ought to have been known to the Business Committee, noting that as it were, that committee was not aware of the arrangement for the Finance Minister’s delivery.

Mr Bagbin, for his part, said what the minister was to do was not a new thing but that there were precedents, which he cited.

The Speaker also threw more light on the precedents and added that if there was the need to make a necessary provision in the Standing Orders of the House that would not infringe on any constitutional provision, then such a provision was welcome for harmony in the future.

Mr Terkper consequently took the podium to deliver a “statement to Parliament on the implications of the fall in crude oil prices on the 2015 budget”.

Writer’s email:  victor.kwawukume@graphic.com.gh