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Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has opined that he understands why the Minority leadership harshly critiqued Clerks of Parliament, accusing them of being partisan.

According to him, such ‘heat’ ought to be applied in order to get people to act.

Despite being unhappy with the clerks being tagged as partisan, he recounted that as Minority Leader he used to mount spirited arguments in the quest to apply ‘heat’ for an action to be taken.

He made the assertion when the Minority side raised issues against the clerks for marking some of its MPs absent despite being present and also for not recording that their side staged a walkout when the E-levy bill was passed on March 29.

“We have such cases [partisanship accusations] pending before the Parliamentary Service Board and Parliamentary Service Board is handling them and will take disciplinary actions against the members of staff.

“I have utmost responsibility for the control, management of all the Parliamentary staff. The clerk is only the head [of table]. So Honorable Members, please let’s take some time and go through these things well.

“The heat sometimes is necessary because some Ghanaians are like the tortoise. If you don’t put heat under the tortoise, it won’t move and so sometimes…when I was a Minority Leader, I used to put this heat under so I understand why my colleagues are doing the same.

“In fact, the Majority Leader [Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu] when he was also Minority Leader did the same so we understand that and so I want to end up (by) directing that as we go through the corrections of vote and proceedings, these matters be captured properly in the votes and proceedings of the House of today [ March 31, 2022] as rectifying the errors that were committed on the votes and proceedings on the 29th of March 2022,” Bagbin said.

Parliament on March 29 passed the E-levy bill despite the Minority staging a walkout.

Votes and proceedings of Parliament on the day indicate that 8 NDC MPs were marked absent with one NPP MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo marked as absent.

With the exception of Assin North MP, James Gyekye Quayson, who the Minority has admitted was absent, it maintains that the other 7 MPs were present.