Muntaka's Support For Absentee NPP MPs Is Personal, Not A Minority Position – Ablakwa

• MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said the Minority does not support Muntaka Mubarak's motion against the referral of NPP MPs to the privileges committee.
• Mr Ablakwa said he is personally against the motion filed by the Asawase MP against the Speaker's decision to refer Adwoa Safo, Ken Agyapong and Henry Quartey to the committee
• Mr Ablakwa said he believes that MPs must face the law for their actions against the rules of Parliament or the constitution

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has disclosed that a motion filed by one of his colleagues challenging the referral of three absentee MPs to the Privileges Committee is not backed by the Minority.

The North Tongu MP said the motion filed against the Speaker's action by Muntaka Mubarak, Minority Chief Whip, was made independently.

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"The position taken by Muntaka Mubarak is largely a personal position. We haven't caucused on this. I haven't been invited into any caucus meeting where we have discussed it and taken a common position.

"So, at this point, it is an action which is solely in the name of the Honourable Muntaka Mubarak. If you have studied that motion carefully, you notice that he signs on his behalf…and he leaves it there," he said on a Joy News current affairs programme.

Mr Mubarak, also MP for Asawase, raised eyebrows when he defended three governing NPP Members of Parliament referred to the Privileges Committee for their consistent absenteeism.

In Parliament on April 5, 2022, Mr Muntaka filed a motion to challenge the referral of Sarah Adwoa Safo, Henry Quartey, and Kennedy Agyepong to the Privileges Committee for absenting themselves for over 15 sitting days.

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Muntaka said that while he was not condoning absenteeism, he felt that the Speaker, Alban Bagbin, was setting a bad precedent.

"I am against Members of Parliament being absent…but let's be careful the way it is being done. When we allow a bad precedent to be set, it will come back and bite all of us," he said.

His position is that all the three MPs cited for possible punishment for defying the constitution had good cause to be absent.

He said it was an open secret that Mr Agyapong and Mr Quartey were seriously sick while family engagements in the US tied Adwoa Safo.

Many thought this was the Minority's position.

But clarifying on Wednesday, April 6, 2022, Mr Ablakwa told Joy News that the Minority caucus does not collectively back the position of Mr Mubarak.

He said he disagrees with Mr Mubarak because, as stated by Parliament's own rules, the Privileges Committee of Parliament must pronounce the fate of MPs that absents themselves for 15 sitting days.

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Parliament: Adwoa Safo, Two Other MPs Hauled To Privileges Committee Over Absenteeism

Speaker Alban Bagbin on Tuesday, April 5, 2022, referred Dome Kwabenya MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo, and two others to Parliament's Privileges Committee for absenting themselves from Parliament.

Assin Central MP, Kennedy Agyapong, and Ayawaso Central MP, Henry Quartey, complete the list of three governing NPP MPs referred to the committee.

The Privileges Committee will report to the House two weeks after they resume sitting from the Easter break.

Source: YEN.com.gh