Speaker’s Reign Of Terror

Tormenting everybody in the Legislature

…His Driver Most Powerful after Him

Rt. Hon Edward Korbly Doe Adjaho may go down in the history of Ghana’s legislature as the most disliked Speaker of all times unless he urgently changes his leadership style, rights many of his wrongs, makes peace with his former colleagues, especially the leadership of both sides of the House and ends what many close observers consider as ‘his reign of terror’ in the past two years.

Snippets of information reaching The aL-hAJJ revealed that the veteran-legislator-turned Speaker has his less than two-year leadership of the House mired in authoritarianism characterized by “one man show” with utter disregard to the leadership of both the minority and the majority. His driver, according to parliamentary sources is said to be wielding tremendous amount of power and his orders supersede every other order apart from that of his boss, the Speaker.

The Speaker’s autocratic tendencies in his relatively short term in office have incurred the displeasure of his former colleagues the leadership of both sides of the law-making House and according to insiders, “should an election for another Speaker be conducted today he would suffer a resounding defeat”. Sources say many in the House are angling for his ouster to end the semi-dictatorial tendencies that have characterized his legislative leadership over the past two years. “It is true that some Members of Parliament (MPs) from both sides of the chamber have been so incensed with the leadership style of Speaker Doe Adjaho that, they are contemplating activating constitutional processes that could eventually lead to the ouster of the former Ave-Avenor MP and former majority Chief Whip,” a source in Parliament familiar with the situation told this paper on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from the Speaker or any of his political agents.

Although Rt. Hon. Adjaho was the first and only speaker to have been elected Head of the law- making House from among members of Ghana's parliament with high hopes, however, his popularity among his former colleagues and parliamentary staff, according to some MPs, has dipped to its lowest ebb in the 23 years of the Fourth Republican Constitution that ushered in this legislature. According to critics, Mr Adjaho’s penchant for shrugging off wise counseling in the running of the affairs of the House and demands for greater accountability particularly in the execution of the GHC 20m renovation works of Parliament House contract by a Chinese firm has brought his reputation into serious disrepute; “to the extent that even the disgraced former Speaker of Parliament, Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes, is still respected by many MPs despite the public uproar over how he was alleged to have ransacked his official bungalow and made away with almost every valuable thing after the end of his stewardship”.

The aL-hAJJ, has in the past weeks made some disturbing revelations of misuse of public funds in the renovation contract and expansion works of Parliament by China State Hualong Construction Company, who are also working on the job 600 building. Processes involved in the award of the contract, costing and mode of payment sources alleged were single-handedly hijacked by the flamboyant Speaker to the chagrin of the leadership of the august House. This development is said to have sparked tension among MPs over how the contract sum, which was approved by the Parliamentary Service Board in Ghana Cedis and indexed to the dollar suddenly and under mysterious circumstances was rather said to have been indexed into Euro again, adding cost to the Ghanaian tax payer. Indeed, the Minority Leader and MP for Suame, Hon Kyei Mensah Bonsu, though admitted knowledge of approval given for the commencement of works based on a Ghana Cedi contract sum (which he didn’t disclose) but which he stated was indexed to the dollar, but to his surprise, he was told the contract sum was rather indexed to Euro. According to him, as far as he recollects, the contract sum approved by the Parliamentary Board was indexed in USD to cater for future inflation and fluctuation but to his astonishment, while on his way out of the country some payment documents brought to him at the airport for perusal were in EUROS. However, Speaker Doe Adjaho, as Chief Executive of Parliament House, instead of speaking to issues of the possibility of corruption in the execution of the contract raised in the series of publications by The aL-hAJJ, surprisingly, rather had the Public Affairs Directorate of Parliament to respond on his discontent on the bit about him accusing President Mahama of fuelling the media onslaught against him. Recently, when it appeared the alleged corruption charge was not waning as he would have thought, the Speaker, without the knowledge of top officials of Parliament and the leadership of the House, junketed to cool off in China, a trip none in Parliament was able to disclose to The aL-hAJJ if it was private or official, when enquired, further raising many eyebrows. This among other things, this paper’s sources in Parliament had said, the MPs have vowed to burst the Speaker’s over-bloated ego and teach him that “Parliament is the bastion of democracy and it is governed by laws and no individual can run it to suit his whims and caprices.” “This is not how things are done here, he knows it and I am not the one to lecture him on it. We have our rules to put people in check if their actions and inactions appear wayward…I think it is time to invoke the powers that we have. If the Speaker does not amend his ways, we will make history by starting a process to get him out,” an MP was alleged to have said.