Parliament reconvenes Friday
Parliament will reconvene on Friday, May 17, 2024 to consider some urgent government business.
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The reconvening follows a summon the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, issued in a statement on May 10, this year, for the 275 lawmakers to resume sitting.
This is pursuant to article 112(3) of the Constitution and Standing Order 53 (1) and (2) of Parliament, the statement said. When the speaker adjourned the House sine die on March 20, 2024 there were three outstanding matters that the House did not consider even though they were advertised in the Order Paper for the day.
They were the adoption of the 34th report of the Appointments Committees to approve some ministerial nominees, the approval of a $150 million loan to finance the ongoing Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development project and a request for tax exemptions for selected companies under the One-District-One-Factory policy.
Majority’s petition
The summon comes in the wake of the Majority Caucus’s petition for the Speaker to reconvene the House within seven days to consider the government's businesses which Parliament could not deliberate over at the last meeting which ended on March 20, 2024.
In the petition, the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, cited Article 112(3) of the 1992 Constitution and Standing Order 53 of Parliament, which allows 15 per cent of the members of the House to request an early recall of Parliament.
The order obliges the Speaker to, within seven days, after receipt of the Memo, summon Parliament to reconvene. Per the permutations, 15 per cent brings the figure to 42, which the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, told a press conference on Friday, May 3, 2024 that the caucus was capable of garnering.
Currently, more than 100 MPs from the Majority side have signed up to the request to compel the Speaker, Alban Bagbin, to reconvene the House.
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Recall
Mr Afenyo-Markin, who is also the MP for Effutu, said the recall was to enable the House to consider three critical government businesses which were advertised on the Order Paper on March 20, 2024, before the Speaker unilaterally adjourned the House sine die.
"We are fortified by law to proceed to compel the Speaker to reconvene the House,” he said.
Background
The Speaker adjourned the House sine die on March 20, 2024 after the House stopped short of considering the President’s ministerial nominees. He told the House that the inability to consider the nominees followed an interlocutory injunction filed by the National Democratic Congress MP for South Dayi at the Supreme Court to restrain him.
The restraint, he said, was to stop him as the Speaker of Parliament from proceeding with the vetting and approval of persons submitted by the President until the provisions of the Constitution were satisfied.
“The House is unable to continue to consider the nominations of His Excellency the President in the spirit of upholding the rule of law until after the determination of the application for interlocutory injunction by the Supreme Court,” the Speaker said.