Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Bagbin has referred three Majority Members of Parliament to the privileges committee for absenting themselves for more than 15 days without permission.
The trio, Dome Kwabenya’s Sara Adwoa Safo, Ayawaso West MP and Greater Accra Regional Minister Henry Quartey and Assin Central MP Kennedy Agyapong will have to provide a convincing explanation to the Privileges Committee chaired by First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu in order to keep their jobs as MPs.
Failure to do that will mean the House will automatically vote to decide their fate.
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu in February 2022, had asked the New Patriotic Party to get ready for three by-elections because aside from Sarah Adwoa Safo, Kennedy Agyapong and Henry Quartey absented themselves for 18 working days each without permission.
In a Facebook post on February 22, Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said “unimpeachable assessment of the Votes and Proceedings of Parliament — between October 26, 2021, and November 24, 2021” revealed that the two lawmakers failed to obtain prior permission from Speaker Alban S.K. Bagbin before deserting parliament for more than the 15 working days beyond which an MP cannot be absent from work.
He added that it will be unfair to sacrifice Adwoa Safo alone when others including Kennedy Agyapong who is the most vociferous on this matter are equally guilty of the same truancy.
Some members of the NPP caucus in parliament have publicly accused Sarah Adwoa Safo of refusing to attend to her parliamentary duties and threatened to drag her to the Privileges Committee for questioning which will lead to the eventual declaration of her seat vacant by the Speaker.
Kennedy Agyapong who has also fallen foul of this Parliamentary rule had been the most vociferous in attacking the mother of his two children and calling her all sorts of names on various media platforms.
He alleged that the Gender, Children, and Social Protection Minister who is on sick leave is holding the NPP to ransom, saying she would only avail herself to support the party’s numbers in parliament if she is made the Deputy Majority Leader.
