Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin, today gave a dressing down to Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensa Bonsu, in Parliament after the Leader of Government Business invited himself to tell the Speaker how to do his job.
After telling the Speaker how he should structure and execute a seating policy in the House, Hon Bagbin told the Suame MP to stop overreaching and mind his own business.
“Hon. Majority Leader your powers have not reached that. The business of government is led by you in this house, you don’t lead Parliament, you lead the business of the House, you lead the Majority and you lead government business. As to the role of the Speaker, you haven’t reached there yet, when you get there you’ll give rules,” the Speaker said.
Mensah-Bonsu was the butt of laughter after he received the sobering advice.
The Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs had suggested to the Speaker to issue strict directives for all MPs to sit at their respective positions in the House to make it easy for every MP to be identified.
However, in making the suggestion he had accused the Speaker of double standards, alleging that when Bagbin was Deputy Speaker he had insisted on proper seating but has since relaxed the rules after becoming the Speaker.
“When you were the Deputy Speaker, you were insistent that Members speak from their seats so that you’ll be able to identify them but our notice is that you never cease to make that pronouncement and yet as the day rise on, you relax on the rules,” the Majority Leader told the Speaker.
“I’ll encourage you to be consistent with us so that everybody will speak from his seat; the rules should not be relaxed,” he added.
Before asking him to sit down, the Speaker had dismissed Kyei Mensah Bonsu’s motion.