You are attacking my ruling, you don't have that authority - Bagbin fails to rein in Muntaka

Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin defended a ruling he handed down in the matter of a vote of censure filed against Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta by the Minority Caucus.

In doing so, he also schooled Minority Chief Whip Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, who Bagbin accused of attacking the ruling he gave despite not having the authority so to do.

It started when Muntaka rose to second the motion of censure vote as moved by Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, he started off by quoting Order 106 of the Standing Orders which Bagbin relied on to rule that the censure motion be referred to a committee before it comes back to the plenary.

Muntaka in disagreeing made comments the Speaker deemed an attack on his ruling.

Bagbin interjected the Asawaase MP's submission stating: "Hon, you are completely, completely out of order. Hon. Member, I don’t take my rulings lightly, please. You are attacking my ruling and I think you don’t have that authority to do so. If you want to attack my ruling, come by a substantive motion.

"Your understanding of 'during the debate,'... debate of matters before the House is not only during the plenary session. At the committee level, what you do there is to debate. That is why when you agree at the committee level and you come and put the matter here, you don’t waste time to debate again," he stressed.

Muntaka proceeded to seek to drum home his point that it was solely the decision of 275 MPs to decide on the issue but Bagbin explained that a House cannot be properly constituted without a Speaker.

"Move away from the understanding that you are the makers of everything here, I have been listening to you, don’t give me that temptation," he said before demanding a withdrawal and apology for Muntaka's pronouncements.

The MP's refusal forced Bagbin to order that the latter part of his submissions be expunged from the Hansard.

"Hon. Members, I direct that all what the Minority Chief Whip has said after I have told him to withdraw and apologize, be expunged from the records. I so direct. Hansard expunge everything from the record.

"Minority Chief Whip, you’ll have a difficulty in catching my eye again," Bagbin warned.

How motion of censure against Ofori-Atta was argued

The Minority Leader filed a motion of censure late last month against Minister for Finance Ken Ofori-Atta.

The motion was duly admitted by Speaker Alban Bagbin and on November 10, the motion was moved by Haruna Iddrisu to trigger debate and a vote on the same.

Speaker Bagbin, however, in his interpretation of the rules the Minority relied on referred the issue to an 8-member ad hoc committee formed to probe the Minority's claims against the Finance Minister.

The committee co-chaired by Dominic Ayine (NDC) and KT Hammond (NPP) is expected to present their report in seven days, following which the House will proceed with the censure process or otherwise.

SARA/PEN