2022 Budget Brouhaha: Kwesi Pratt Calls For Review of Parliament's Standing Orders
Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has called for a review of the Parliamentary processes following Friday's incident involving the Majority and Minority in Parliament.
The Majority, after calling on the Speaker to order the General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Johnson Aseidu Nketia to exit the gallery in Parliament before voting on the budget, walked out from their chambers.
This notwithstanding didn't stop the Speaker from carrying on with the day's activities, hence allowing the Minority to vote on the 2022 budget in the absence of the Majority members.
The Minority rejected the budget but the Majority insists the budget still holds because the Minority's vote is unconstitutional.
They argue both the Speaker and Minority didn't respect the standing orders of the House.
Commenting on the incident, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. was of a view that the disorder in Parliament may have been avoided if the Parliamentarians had reviewed their orders during the formation of the 8th Parliament.
He recounted that with the current Parliament consisting of 137 members on both sides and an independent candidate, the old standing orders couldn't be applied to the new Parliament.
The 8th Parliament under the Fourth Republic is historic as there has never been a time that both the Majority and Minority record same numbers.
To Mr. Pratt, this was a signal for a review of the Parlimentary processes but ''we still want to work with that majority/minority thing. That thing has stuck in our heads; we can't get out of it. But we should have gotten out of it and written new orders and so on to reflect the reality in Parliament...''
However, without the new orders in place, to him, what will bring calm in Parliament is consensus building.
" . . it is not going to be possible to mobilize 138 votes all the time. So, let's start building the consensus now. Let's start building the consensus now and move on the basis of the consensus into the future," he said.
He called on Ghanaians to ''mount pressure on the Parliamentarians telling them you must come to some consensus in the national interest''.
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