The general secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) John Boadu, said the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, is a beneficiary of a position he never worked for and this is the reason for some of his comments in recent times.
According to Mr. Boadu, recent comments by the Speaker of Parliament suggesting that he (Alban Bagbin) has the “powers to remove the president but the president cannot remove him” are unfortunate and serve no purpose.
“The Speaker, as we all know, is only benefiting from what he didn’t work for and, as a result, he has been passing comments that sometimes are strictly unnecessary. For instance, he passed a comment that he has the capacity to impeach or remove the president and the president cannot remove you”.
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin speaking at the post-budget forum held at Ho in the Volta Region over the weekend, asserted that he can remove the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo from office.
He said the law gives Parliament the powers to remove a president but does not give the same powers to a president to be able to remove a Speaker of Parliament.
Mr. Bagbin was concerned that Parliament approves budgets that benefit the executive more than the legislature and the judiciary.
This, he said was their own making and asked that steps be taken to fix the situation.
“This year, all the laws we have been passing are laws we passed to benefit the executive, even we forget about Parliament in the language we use, this is self-inflicted; it is not a deficiency in the constitution, it’s a deficiency in Parliament itself. We must correct it”, the Speaker said.
But in a response, NPP scribe said the position of the Speaker is not true since he (Speaker) does not even have a vote in the House.
“Is totally unnecessary because he forgets that, as a Speaker, he doesn’t even have a vote”.
Mr. Boadu continued “So, on what basis is he saying that? Or he’s going to supervise a distorted proposal for impeachment or what?”.
I think it’s time he recognises that he’s benefiting from something he didn’t work for, the NPP general secretary maintained.
