Debates of 25 Jun 2020

MR SPEAKER
PRAYERS 11:17 a.m.
VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS AND THE OFFICIAL REPORT 11:17 a.m.
Mr Speaker 11:17 a.m.
Hon Members, correction of the Votes and Proceedings of Wednesday, 24th June, 2020.
Mr Speaker 11:17 a.m.
Hon Members, we have the Official Report of Wednesday, 3rd June, 2020. Any correction please?
Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa 11:17 a.m.
Mr Speaker, in the third paragraph of column 020, “Price Water House Coopers” should be captured correctly as one word “PricewaterhouseCoopers”.
Mr Speaker 11:17 a.m.
Any other corrections please?
Hon Member, in the absence of any further corrections, the Official Report of Wednesday, 3rd June, 2020, as corrected, is hereby adopted as the true record of proceedings.
Hon Members, there is an Urgent Question for the Hon Minister for Finance.
There is an official communication from the Hon Minister for Finance who would not be able to attend to answer the Question today, and has asked for rescheduling. We would proceed to the Hon Minister for Health.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu 11:17 a.m.
Mr Speaker, with your indulgence, I know that you have moved to the Hon Minister for Health. It is true that some correspondence came in. I saw the Clerks-at-the-Table discuss with the Hon Majority Leader at Business Committee in respect of the Hon Minister for Finance.
Mr Speaker, I urge that the correspondence should get to you earlier, instead of coming when we are about to begin proceedings and a letter comes to say that a particular Hon Minister is unavailable. We accept legitimate excuses, but the communication to you for that excuse must be timely.
Mr Speaker 11:17 a.m.
Hon Majority Leader, can you tell us something about the item numbered 3(ii)?
Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, my attention has been drawn to the communication from the Hon Minister for Health in respect of the Question listed as 3(ii) from the Chief Director of the Ministry of Health.
Then there is also another correspondence from the Hon Minister for Finance. As the Hon Minority Leader alluded to, I came to be served with a copy of the correspondence just this morning. So I am not in a position to speak to it very much, except to observe that in respect of the Question listed for the Hon Minister for Health, last week, we all came to know the health status of the Hon Minister for Health.
He pleaded that he be given sometime, and it is the reason I said to it, that when he is out of the woods, I would have the communication, and then we would programme for the Hon Minister to be here with us at the appropriate time.
Unfortunately, the Question has come to be listed, but it did not come to my attention. So we would have to
re-programme these two Questions. I would have to touch base with the two Hon Ministers for us to know exactly when. I should think that tomorrow may not be appropriate, so we would have to re-locate them to the programme of activities for next week.
However, I would have to touch base with the two Hon Ministers and see. It did not register on the radar of the Business Committee this morning. We would therefore see what to do.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Thank you very much.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, there should be no difficulty. As I recall, it was your own directive in respect of the health of the Hon Minister for this Question to be rescheduled. Therefore if the Hon Majority Leader still asks for time, we can live with that.
Mr Speaker, I thank you.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
The Table Office should please take steps to reschedule. You should however make sure that you are in touch with the appropriate authority to ensure that when this comes on, Business takes place.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, I can do item numbered 5 (a).
PAPERS 11:27 a.m.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, I guess the Paper numbered 5 (b) would have to be stood down. We may also have to stand the Paper numbered 5 (c) down.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Very well, so we would move on to the item listed as 6.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, the Hon Chairman of the Constitutional, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs Committee is here. He could brief us on the status of the Paper numbered 5 (d), and may lay the report.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Yes, Hon Chairman of the Committee, you may please take the item numbered 5 (d).
By the Chairman of the Committee --
(d) Report of the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs on the Conduct of Public Officers Bill, 2018.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Hon Majority Leader, do you have an indication?
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, the Hon Chairman of the Finance Committee is not here to take us through the Motion listed as item numbered 6.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Hon Majority Leader, in the meantime, can we receive our special visitors? I am not used to keeping medical people waiting.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, we would have to suspend Sitting and move into a Committee of the Whole in order for us to receive our visitors who would brief us on
the way forward for us as Hon Members of Parliament, staff and officers of the House, including the journalists, with whom we work on daily bases.
Mr Speaker, we would therefore break into a Committee of the Whole and invite our august visitors, the National Coordinator of the COVID- 19 Pandemic and his team to hear from them on the best way for us as a House.
Mr Speaker, I would plead that you allow the journalists, including the television camera persons to all be here. This is because at the end of the day, we would want the nation to hear what they have to tell us, and by necessary inference, also what advice they have for the nation.
Mr Speaker, I thank you.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Thank you very much, Hon Majority Leader.
Yes, Hon Minority Leader?
Mr Iddrisu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, you provided guidance on this matter, and therefore I only can pray that we relax our rules to allow for a section of the senior staff or whatever is appropriate to join us in that briefing. Mr Speaker, I thank you.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, I would want to add to what the Hon Minority Leader said, even though I should have stated so earlier. The top management in the House, which is in the region of about 27 staff would be too few, so we ask that all senior staff be allowed to move with us into the Committee of the Whole.
In order for us to listen to the august visitors, we may populate the public gallery, hence the need for purposes of social distancing.
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
The representatives of the junior staff too can be here.
Hon Members, I direct that the Clerk uses his discretion for us to have a representation of members of staff here, both senior and junior. Of course, we would ensure that there would be no crowding, so we relax the rules accordingly, and I admit them all now into the House for them not to be strangers, and that is the end of the matter.
We could go ahead and have the briefing because this is a matter of general national importance, and if all others are here, the better for us all.
They should all start pouring in. [Interruption] --- [Pause] --
Mr Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Hon Members, at this juncture, we would suspend Sitting briefly and move into a Committee of the Whole. Then we would start again. You may remain where you are. It is just a formality.
11.41 am -- Sitting Suspended.
1.37 p.m. -- Sitting resumed
MR FIRST DEPUTY SPEAKER
Mr First Deputy Speaker 11:27 a.m.
Could every Member resume his or her seat, please? [Pause]

Yes, Hon Majority Leader, any indication?
Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, I think we have had some very useful discussions with our guest visitors and we are all better informed by the circumstances of these times.
Mr Speaker, I would want to plead before we take an adjournment sine die, that it may be useful to have a second conversation with the group that came here.
Mr Speaker, the time is already 1.35 p.m. and I guess we may need to take an adjournment because the
Deputy Minister who should, together with the Chairman of the Committee on Lands and Forestry, be leading us in the consideration of the Land Bill, 2019 is not here. I am told the Chairman of the Committee is indisposed, so, we may have to stand the consideration down till tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Mr Speaker, so I would want to move and so do move, that this House adjourns until tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, I beg to second the Motion for adjournment and to note that, yes, we should engage the COVID-19 Team next time around but we should respect our protocols. There was no Minister for Health, no Deputy Minister for Health and no Director- General of the Ghana Health Service. We just do not work that way.
Mr Speaker, then when they came, as usual, it was in a rush. Honestly, I was not happy because when I had my issues they said leadership, so I had to yield to my Hon Colleague. Then next time, do you want me to sit here? When you call me I will be reluctant because you want me to work and we have issues.
For instance, other ailments are being neglected in the instance of COVID-19. We need to hear what
is happening because there are critical deaths at Korle-Bu and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals.
Mr Speaker, I can understand the management of time. I can understand why the Hon Speaker was personally providing leadership. If it were you they may have been some latitude because many of the issues I listed here, I had to abandon them because leaders then -- [Interruption] .
He is a leader on his own right; he is a Whip and I am the Minority Leader. His thinking and constituency are his; I have my own. So I will plead with the Hon Majority Leader that when he engages us, we should be flexible but next time they are coming, they should not walk on their own other than that, we would be opening our doors.
Anybody who bypasses, whether Minister or Director-General could come and say he or she wants to address Parliament. Mr Speaker, I second the Motion for adjournment.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu 11:27 a.m.
Mr Speaker, I think this is a very important matter that has been raised by the Hon Minority Leader and I will need to clear the air.
Mr Speaker, this meeting was not prior arranged. Indeed, it was Dr Pambo who provided us with some information yesterday on account of which I said because there was about same information passed on to me by Dr Nsiah-Asare, we needed to invite him to corroborate what Dr Pambo was telling us yesterday.
So that information was meant for us as leaders but he also elected to come with the Coordinator, Dr Asamoah Baah. So while we were having the discussion, Dr Asamoah Baah walked in, then we decided amongst ourselves that we should not keep this information to ourselves. We should let the rest of the Members of Parliament hear it
So up to this morning, we had not arranged for them to be here. It explains why we had this emergency meeting. In any event, to be fair, even when we were coming, we thought that maybe after their briefing for about 10-15 minutes, they would walk away.
When they came to sit Hon Members had issues, so I said to them that we cannot just have the briefing and walk away. Let us listen to Hon Members who may want some clarification which is what happened.
ADJOURNMENT 11:27 a.m.