Minority motion on Merchant Bank sale suffers ‘stillbirth’

The Speaker of Parliament has ruled to disallow the moval of a motion by over 100 New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs seeking the House to instititue an inquiry into the sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz Private Equity Fund Ltd.

Speaker Doe Adjaho after a heated banter between the Majority and Minority sides, ruled that thte motion could not  be moved because the action being sought by the motion would interfere with court proceedings involving the case.

Parliamentarians were summoned from their Christmas break to attend to the matter following the request by the NPP MPs under Article 112 of the 1992 Constitution, with members of the Majority side condemning the truncation of the opportunity to visit constituents and protesting that the case needed no emergency treatment, besides if the petitioners had any misgivings about the propriety of the transaction or suspected criminal conduct, the House could attend to those matters on resumption. Listen to the Speaker in the attached audio.