Foreign Minister In Row With Speaker Of Parliament

Foreign Minister, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, today forced the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Peter Ala Adjetey to concede that there have been mistakes in the record of parliamentary proceedings. The Foreign Minister who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for New Juaben told the House that he was distressed by the fact that even though he sought permission to travel with the President to Zambia for the recent OAU summit, the records indicated that he had been ‘absent without permission’.

Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman was particularly unhappy that an attempt by the Attorney General, Nana Akuffo Addo to explain his absence at Friday’s sitting was brushed aside by the Speaker. Mr Owusu-Agyeman accused the Speaker of deliberately refusing to listen to the Attorney General’s explanations.

He said this gave the impression that he was an irresponsible MP. In response, the Speaker, Peter Ala Adjetey, said he had been embarrassed by Mr Owusu-Agyeman’s unparliamentary remarks and ordered that the records be ascertained and the necessary corrections made.

The NDC Member for Biakoye, Dr Kwabena Agyei, accused the Foreign Minister of putting up a behaviour unbecoming of a Foreign Minister and advised that next time he should put across his complaints in a more diplomatic manner. But this verbal altercation between the Mr. Owusu Agyemang and the Speaker provided some comic relief and brought some excitement into an otherwise dreary session.