The marshalls moved in swiftly to protect the Mace
Parliament rejects 2022 budget
Controversy surrounds approval of 2022 budget
Joseph Osei-Owusu says he is not Speaker
Only a few minutes ago, near fisticuffs happened on the floor of the Chamber of Parliament after the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu, ruled against an application by the Minority in the House to overturn the approval of the 2022 budget.
On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, the House had only the members on the majority side present after the House reconvened following last Friday’s rejection of the budget that had been presented by the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
With all members of parliament on the majority present in the House, and the MP for Bekwai, who doubled as the sit-in Speaker of Parliament, the House overturned the earlier decision on the budget on Tuesday, going on to approve the budget under very controversial circumstances.
Today, after the minority returned to the floor of the House, Haruna Iddrisu, who is the minority Leader, put forward a motion to overturn yesterday’s decision that saw the budget approved but that was not taken lightly as members on both sides of the House argued out strong reasons, backed by their own interpretations of the law, on the constitutionality or not of that decision.
In the long run, Joseph Osei-Owusu, sitting in as speaker, declared that the decision cannot be overturned, amidst open interjections from the Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, and other MPs on that side of the House.
Soon, things begun to escalate and, in a flash, following his declaration on the matter, and also after declaring that “the deputy speaker is not the speaker,” Joseph Osei-Owusu was promptly guided out of the heated hall so as to save him any further angst.
But not many of the minority MPs would have that from their colleague and first deputy speaker of Parliament.
In split seconds, things intensified: some MPs rushed to the platform on which the chair of the Speaker is, dragged it to the main floor of the Chamber, even as some others tried to take hold of the mace of Parliament.
Being the symbol of authority in parliament, the parliamentary marshalls, who had already taken wind of the tensions building up in the House and were strategically standing around, swiftly rushed in to save the Minority MPs from seizing the mace.
See how all of this transpired here:
