The Speaker of the House, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has threatened to submit the Minister of Transportation to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee if he continues to skip sessions of the House in order to respond to inquiries from members of the House about issues of national importance.
The Speaker said that despite being informed of the nine questions three weeks prior, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah's refusal to appear in the House to respond to them as stated in yesterday's Order Paper amounted to a violation of the House's privileges.
He felt that the minister had failed to offer convincing justifications for why he would be unable to appear in the House and respond to questions.
Committee on Privileges
"I'm inclined to send his behaviour to the privileges committee, but due to the leadership's involvement, I'll repress the urge and refrain from doing so for today. "However, the Privileges Committee will be notified of any further actions analogous to this behaviour. He asked that the questioning be moved to Thursday, but I would not agree to that.
Speaking before the House of Representatives yesterday[June 21, 2022], Mr. Bagbin directed the nine questions back to the Business Committee for rescheduling to a time when the minister could come and respond.
"I'm going to pardon him for today since we have a lot of questions today. However, let him know that this House will no longer tolerate such behaviour; In the event that the minister is unavoidably away, chief directors and interim chief directors must be advised in very unambiguous terms that they would not be accepted, he admonished.
major ministers
The Speaker issued the caution after informing the House that two important ministers—the Minister of Transportation and the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources—were expected to respond to a number of questions.
The Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, informed the House that leadership had received correspondence from the minister stating that he was unable to appear and answer the questions because he was unavoidably absent when he later invited the Transport Minister to take the seat to respond to the questions advertised in his name.