Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Yaw Buaben Asamoa has appealed to Ghanaians to be forgiving of the actions of Parliamentarians instead of calling for their heads.
Admitting that happenings in Parliament prior to the election of a Speaker, the swearing in of Parliamentarians and the President was in poor taste, he asked for it to be a learning curve.
According to him, Ghana can only evolve and make headway if processes and laws are put in place to prevent happenings in Parliament yesterday from repeating itself rather than going on a witch hunt.
“We have successfully appointed a Speaker of Parliament, sworn in Parliamentarians and the President. The actions of Parliamentarians didn’t disrupt the process yesterday so we just need to sit and put things in place to prevent what happened from repeating itself”, he said.
The former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Adentan Constituency, Yaw Buaben Asamoa made his position known in an interview with Samuel Eshun, host of the Happy Morning Show aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy 98.9 FM.
“A lot of things happened yesterday which were bad but we should not let the urge of punishing Parliamentarians overtake the lessons and knowledged learnt here”, the learned fellow appealed.
Background
The election of the Speaker of Parliament and the swearing in of Parliamentarians yesterday was not without controversy as several alien incidents characterized the night into the day including the invasion of military personnel into the parliamentary chamber.
Earlier, the NDC Members of Parliament, clad in white, moved to sit on the right side of the Speaker to indicate they were in the majority which sparked serious controversy.
Later the issue of allowing the MP-elect for Assin North, Richard Quayson to vote in the election came up strongly as the Clerk who superintended over the voting process indicated that he would not allow him to cast his ballot because a court injunction had been granted to bar him from holding himself out as the MP.
That issue was resolved and the NDC MP allowed to vote subsequently.
During counting of the ballots, the Member of Parliament for Tema West and former Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry ran to the table and snatched the uncounted ballots of Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye and attempted to bolt with it.
By: Joel Sanco
