The Minority in Parliament on Wednesday, July 12 expressed dissent over the Table Office’s capturing of their boycotts on Thursday, July 6 and Tuesday, July 11 as having absented themselves from the House.
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, sought the guidance of the Speaker of Parliament, citing precedents where walkouts and boycotts have been duly recorded in reports.
“Mr Speaker, we have indicated,” he stated, “that anytime our colleagues appear before the courts, we will boycott proceedings and [Tuesday’s] absence was a boycott, so I thought that that will be captured for the record, so it is not as though we just absented ourselves.
“Because I recall that the votes and proceedings has captured previously walkouts and boycotts, so I rise to seek your guidance on this matter.”
But Speaker Alban Bagbin said the Table Office was right to have captured the Minority MPs as having absented themselves because there was no written permission to him.
“A member if he wants not to attend but wants to be recorded as being absent because a permission has been granted, that permission has to be granted by the Speaker in writing. That is what guides attendance to the house.
“So you can choose to attend and you can choose not to attend. When you choose not to attend depending on your own action, you could be marked as absent and that means without permission or absent with permission.”
The Speaker, therefore, asked the Minority Caucus to present a written, not oral, permission before being recognised as absent with permission on day’s they go to court to solidarise with their colleagues standing trial.
“So the burden will now shift onto you as a group to show evidence that my good self has granted you permission to absent yourselves in writing.”
The Minority, immediately after the swearing-in of Assin North Member (MP) James Gyakye Quayson, announced its decision to boycott proceedings each time he appeared before court on his criminal charge.
This decision was later escalated to include trials of the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, and Asutifi South MP Collins Dauda.
So far, two boycotts have been staged and both have been marked as absent for the Minority members and this is what is not going down well with them.