Bagbin explains why he didn’t overturn Joe Wise’s counterrulings on Budget, COVID probe

Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin has given reasons why he opted not to overrule the First Deputy Speaker of the House, Joe Wise when the latter overturned his ruling on the 2022 budget and Covid-19 probe.

The Bekwai MP who served as Speaker while Mr. Bagbin travelled to the UAE for medical care last year overturned his ruling, and with a one-sided house, counted himself in, to achieve the required quorum to approve the 2022 budget. The speaker condemned the action.

About three months later, The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, had to take another swipe at his first deputy again over the latter’s decision to dismiss a private member’s motion seeking to probe the government’s COVID-19 expenditure.

According to Bagbin, such actions are illegal and offensive and must not reoccur, especially when he had already admitted the motion.

“The penchant of the First Deputy Speaker [Joe Osei-Owusu] to overrule my ruling is, to say the least, unconstitutional, illegal, and offensive. Be that as it may, I shall not be taking any steps to overrule the decision of the First Deputy Speaker to dismiss the motion as moved by the Hon. Ranking Member of the Finance Committee,” he said.

The Speaker has now provided reasons for this decision. The Speaker stated this at a press event organized by the Parliamentary Service for journalists in the Western Region as part of activities marking 30 years of uninterrupted democracy under the Fourth Republic.

“If you don’t want this Parliament, then which would you like? Those who are saying this is the worst Parliament, including my First Deputy Speaker, want a Parliament where they would have an absolute majority so they could be saying Yeeyee! to every issue,” he said.

“It’s happened because the Speaker is a Democrat and knows that the Standing Orders of Parliament have a procedure to allow only Members of Parliament (MPs) to do so, and you know I am not an MP.

“So when people were asking why the Speaker did not do anything about that act, I knew that the Standing Orders allow the MPs to do that,” he explained.