Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has deferred the approval of the 2024
Economic Policy and Budget Statement of the government to Thursday 7th December 2023.
This followed a disagreement on Wednesday when the Majority and Minority leaders concluded the debate and the Speaker put it to a voice vote.
The House failed to agree with the opinion of the Speaker on the Voice Vote and the Minority challenged it and demanded a headcount.
Chaos erupted when the Majority claimed the Speaker had already ruled the voice votes in their favour and requested him to rule out the Deputy Minority leader, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah who called for the headcount.
incidentally, the two Caucuses did not have the full complement of their 137 and 137+ 1 members to carry the day but the Minority believed a headcount would go in their favour because the Majority group had more of its members absent on the day.
Mr. Alban Bagbin agreed with the Deputy leader’s call for a headcount but directed members to remain seated in their chairs.
The clerks, he said, would take out a roll call and the MPs would have to respond to their names but getting up to be identified.
This directive, however, did not go down well with the Majority group who accused the Speaker of calling out for a division rather than a headcount and staged a walkout in protest.
The House rescheduled the motion for the approval of the budget on Thursday 30th November, but only the leadership of the Majority group showed up in the Chamber while all other members abandoned the session.
In that circumstance, the Speaker deferred the question on the Motion to Thursday 7th December 2023 when the House will convene to vote on the Budget again.
Incidentally, this is the second time members of Parliament have failed to approve the government’s budget. In 2021 a similar incident occurred and the Majority group walked out on their own budget
