Mr Speaker, thank you
very much. What you have said has drawn my attention to something. Our constituents are taking note of the fact that some Hon Members are absent in the House and it is becoming an issue for the people of Ghana. Some Hon Members of Parliament are being chastised for nothing.
Mr Speaker, does it mean that until
we enter this Chamber, we have not
come to Parliament? Are we saying that, for instance, if I am a member of the Finance Committee and the Committee starts its work at 9.00 a.m. and I come to work and for some reason, Parliament Sits for just 30 minutes and I am unable to register although I am here working, I have not come to Parliament to do my work for that day, allowing my constituents to have a problem with me?
We need to look at these things
carefully because it is a problem and it
is becoming an issue, that until an Hon
Member comes to the Chamber, he is
absent. We take our traditions from the
British Parliament. Sometimes, we
watch television and only six people
are working, but at the end of the day,
because they are doing parliamentary
work at the Committees, they are
marked as present.
I believe that it is for good reason
that the names of Hon Members who
attend Committee meetings are
captured in the Votes and Proceedings.
Why can we not allow such people to
be marked present as well? So, it
means, until we come to the Chamber,
we are absent. I do not get it. We need
direction on it.
Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak
Muntaka: Mr Speaker, my worry is
that my Hon Colleague is a very senior
Member of this House and three
successive Speakers have made this
ruling, so we do not need to go back to
it. The reason is that the way we have
structured our Standing Orders is
different from those other Parliaments
that we are talking about.
This is because as it is now, if
somebody raises quorum and in 10
minutes we do not have the quorum,
Mr Speaker would have to adjourn the
House. That is why all the past Rt Hon
Speakers have insisted that Hon
Members can be at the corridors but
until they have entered this Chamber,
they would still be marked absent.
There have been instances when I
was sitting in a Committee meeting,
and looking at the way the Committee's proceedings were, it would be difficult
to leave, so I had to fill a form for
leave of absence just to make sure that
I would not be marked absent without
permission, yet, I was just at the Job
600 Office Complex.
In my view, if we want to change
it, we could take advantage of the new
Standing Orders because three
successive Speakers have made this
ruling. I would like us to be frank;
most of our Hon Colleagues have the
habit of coming to Parliament and
without trying to mention names, they
would sit at the Coffee Shop the whole
day. They would not even enter here
and would not also be at the Committee
yet, they would say that they came to
Parliament. The Hon Member knows
that we have those challenges.
We have all been arguing that we
should have the biometric system
where Hon Members would enter
through the entrances, and it would
take our biometrics and the time we
leave. It would be able to record
neatly.
Mr Speaker, The Hon Member for
Bimbilla, Mr Nitiwul, was a Deputy
Minority Leader when we insisted that
Committees should not sit before
Parliament Sits. The Committees
should wait for us to start Sitting so
that they would come into the
Chamber before they go and start the
Committee sittings. Alternatively, if
they start early and see that Sitting in
the Chamber has started, they could
suspend, let Hon Members come into
the Chamber and then go back so that
they would avoid the situation where
they are in the Committee Meetings
but are marked absent.
Unfortunately, a lot of Members of
Parliament (MPs) try to take undue
advantage by saying that they came
and were in their offices and so why
should they be marked absent? They
should come into the Chamber
because our Standing Orders are such
that when we start and do not have the
right number, we may have to adjourn
the House. So, we need to avoid that.
Mr Speaker, maybe in our new
Standing Orders, we need to explicitly state it so that it would be able to negate the rulings of the Speakers. This is because they made rulings and
the Hon Member for Bimbilla, was there; Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, Mr Ebenezer Sekyi-Hughes and even Prof Aaron Mike Oquaye. So, let us not go back to this because we would put the Hon Deputy Speaker in a very tight corner now if we want him to make a ruling that would contradict all these ones.
We know our challenge, but if we
decide to change the system in the new Standing Orders, then we should state it explicitly. That would not give room for any Speaker to make a ruling that becomes binding on us. So, let us keep the system, encourage Hon Members to come into the Chamber and when all of us come and are correcting the Votes and Proceedings, we stop the conversations, look through and make sure that we have been marked right. If one was absent with permission, they should make sure that it was properly recorded and if one was present but has been marked absent, then they make sure that it is properly recorded.
However, when the Chamber is
empty and at a point in time, there is no quorum and the House had to suspend, but the next day we see that 220 people were present in the House, it is humiliating to say the least. The public would then say that we could not even have the numbers to conduct Business, yet the next day we are recording that over 200 Hon Members were here. How did it happen?
Mr Speaker, I would like us to get
the biometric system so that we can
overcome all these challenges. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
