Speakership position will be reduced to a mere conveyer belt if Speakers are allowed to accept petitions – Kyei Mensah Bonsu
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister has explained why he challenged the Speaker of Parliament for admitting the petition filed by former owners of defunct UT Bank and UniBank on behalf of the House.
Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu who was speaking on Joy FM’s Top Story Tuesday, noted that although the legislature is opened to hearing and accepting petitions from the citizenry, never in the country’s history has the Speaker been the one accepting such petitions.
The Suame MP said Mr Bagbin’s action could be detrimental to the speakership position.
“The Speaker says that, as a Speaker, there is nowhere in the Constitution or standing orders, debarring him from admitting petitions. So he is open to every petition and I can’t believe that.
“This is because the House will then be inundated with petitions from left, right and center if the Speakership is to be reduced to a mere conveyer belt. So I disagree with the Speaker,” he told host Evans Mensah.
On Friday, a former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor and the CEO of defunct UT Bank petitioned Parliament over the Bank of Ghana (BoG)’s revocation of their banking license.
The former Governor of the central bank petitioned the legislature to investigate the conduct of BoG in the takeover.
And asking Parliament to direct the restoration of the banking license of Unibank Ghana Limited by BoG and remedying the harms done to the shareholders’ property rights as a result of the conduct of the central bank.
But in his view, this particular case is a subjudice, as such, the Speaker should not have admitted it in the first place.
He insisted that it could disrupt judicial process into the matter.
“I expressed my opinion, I said to the Speaker that I disagree with the recourse that he is resorting to because a matter is before the Court.
“The Court has not exhausted the processes and the cases are being heard by the Court and from the Court, the two people run to Parliament to seek cover and petition Parliament,” he stated.
However, Mr Kyei Mensah Bonsu says despite his disagreement, he will comply with the directive of the Speaker and perform his duties as required of him to ensuring that the petition is deliberated on.
