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Parliament’s Privileges Committee has been tasked with probing three Members of Parliament, MPs, who absented themselves beyond the 15 consecutive sittings threshold without the requisite approval.

The 31-member Committee, chaired by First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu (Bekwai MP) was given the task after Speaker Alban Bagbin referred a petition relating to the absence of the said MPs earlier this week.

The three complicit MPs are all from the Majority Group (i.e. New Patriotic Party) - Sarah Adwoa Safo (Dome-Kwabenya), Kennedy Agyapong (Assin Central) and Henry Quartey (Ayawaso Central).

The Committee’s Vice Chairman, Kwasi Afrifa Mensah, told Accra-based Citi FM that they are ready to start work despite the House having adjourned for recess in lieu of the Easter festivities.

“We have a clerk committee, so they will write to us, and then they will call us for a meeting. We are yet to receive any information from the clerk.

“Anytime the Chairman of the Committee will receive a request for investigations, they will communicate to us and give us the date we can meet as a committee to discuss the issues on board.

“We are also on recess but even next week, the chairman of the committee can call us for a meeting. We are not in Parliament, but we are still working,” he stressed.

After Speaker Bagbin referred the three MPs to the Committee, the Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka mounted a strong challenge on the floor about the process through which the referral was made.

He posited that the petition that triggered the referral had to come from within the House and not from a member of the public, even if from a citizen, that it should have come through an MP.

Muntaka has since filed a motion seeking to reverse the referral, but with Parliament in recess, the Committee may continue with its work till the motion is heard after the resumption.