Minority members in parliament have ‘cleared the air’ about their rather unusual composure displayed during the delivery of President Nana Akufo-Addo’s 2019 State of the Nation Address.
In a very rare disposition, members on the minority side in parliament made no comments, held no placards nor made their usual ‘hooting’ and or ‘booeing’ chants during the president’s delivery in contrast to the president's first two appearances before the house.
In fact, one would almost have believed that they were practically appeased by the words of the Pressident and hence were dumbfounded.
On the contrary though, they have disagreed. For them, keeping silent and composed was a sign of respect for the President and citizens.
So that proceedings were not interrupted and everyone clearly heard the President’s speech, Deputy Minority Leader, James Klutse Avedzi said, they decided to maintain their calm.
“It’s something that we have decided, to give the president the respect.
Because this is the only time in the whole year that he appeared before parliament to give us the state of the nation so as citizens of the country and lawmakers, we have agreed that we will allow the president deliver his message to us so that the Ghanaians can also listen without any interruption so that is exactly what we did,” he said in an interview with Joynews after the reading.
He, however, maintained that their true scrutiny of the 2019 SoNA will come out subsequently during the debates in parliament.
“As to whether what the president did was perfect and for that matter that was the reason, no, the debate has already started, officially we will start the debate on Tuesday where all that the president has said those we consider to be right and those we consider not to be right, we’ll come out with all those issues,” he added.
James Klutse Avedzi is Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament