Confusion among Speakers in Ghana’s parliament is rare in Africa - ACEPA

Draman says tension between speakers setting bad example

Political tension has now reached the speakership – Draman

Owusu-Mensah has overturned Bagbin’s ruling twice

Executive director of the Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr Rasheed Draman, has bemoaned the current tension between Ghana’s Speaker of Parliament and his first deputy.

According to him, no parliament in Africa, even those with more than 3 speakers, have experienced the tension being seen between Speaker Alban Bagbin and Deputy Speaker Joseph Owusu-Mensah.


"I have never seen this in any parliament in our continent, the parties can disagree but usually the Speaker and his deputies are usually united; and if you go to some of our neighbouring countries, they have about 5 or 6 deputy speakers, you don’t have this kind of confusion we have," Dr Draman is quoted by asaaseradio.com.


"That (speakers) office is the institution of our Republic and its sanctity must be protected so that we don’t set a very bad precedence. Maybe in future we might have somebody who is from the other side and then you know, some of this could be cited as precedence that happened in the Eighth Parliament and that gives justification for other people to do something else," he added.

He further stated that the situation was very worrying because the impasse between the members of the minority caucus and majority caucus has now reached the office of the speakership of the house.

During the proceeding of parliament on February 24, 2022, Alban Bagbin said it is offensive and unconstitutional for 1st Deputy Speaker Owusu-Mensah to overturn his decision.

Owusu-Mensah overturned the ruling of the Speaker of Parliament two times. The first was in December when he approved the 2022 Budget after the speaker had rejected it and the second was on February 22, 2022, when he threw out a motion for a probe into Ghana’s COVID-19 expenditure after the speaker had accepted it.