{"id":1125,"date":"2021-11-10T18:02:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T18:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parliamentnews360.com\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2021-11-10T18:02:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T18:02:56","slug":"proceedings-in-ghanas-parliament-screeches-to-a-halt-over-quorum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parliamentnews360.com\/index.php\/proceedings-in-ghanas-parliament-screeches-to-a-halt-over-quorum\/","title":{"rendered":"Proceedings in Ghana\u2019s Parliament \u2018Screeches\u2019 to a Halt Over Quorum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Proceedings in the Parliament of Ghana screeched to halt on Wednesday, November 10, 2021 after the House failed to raise the minimum number of Members of Parliament required to do business on the Floor on behalf of the good people of Ghana.<\/strong>
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A visibly frustrated presiding Second Deputy Speaker, Andrew Asiama Amoako had to express his disappointment before adjourning the House that, \u201cI think this House has been embarrassed. The cameras are on us; we deliberately suspended the House for one hour just to make sure you get the numbers, yet we couldn\u2019t make up the numbers.
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\u201cI have counted and counted and counted, we still have not made the numbers. Please, let\u2019s advice ourselves.\u201d
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Long after an application for a lack of quorum was made on the Floor by the Member of Parliament for Adaklu, Governs Kwame Agbodza, the required 10 minutes grace period was initiated; the bell was rang; the House was suspended; and the technical and legal gymnastics expected between the leadership of the two sides of the House also played out, but to no avail.
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According to Order 48(1) of the Standing Orders of Parliament, \u201cthe Presence of at least one-third of all Members of Parliament besides the person presiding shall be necessary to constitute a quorum of the House.
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\u201c(2) If at the time of sitting, a Member takes notice or objection that there are present in the House, besides the person presiding, less than one-third of the number of all the Members of Parliament and after an interval of ten minutes a quorum is not present, the person presiding shall adjourn the House without Question put until the next sitting day.\u201d
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At the time the application for lack of quorum was made, there were 52 Members of Parliament present on the Floor of the House just shortly after the House had begun sitting at 23 Minutes past 11 Am. Both the majority and the minority sides of the House had 26 Members of Parliament each. Meanwhile, the 275 Member Parliament required at least 92 MPs to be present in the Chamber to meet the one-third required membership for business.
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Whereas the Speaker was obligated by the Standing Orders to adjourn the House when it failed to raise the quorum within the 10 minutes grace period, the presiding Second Deputy Speaker, Andrew Asiama Amoako, in his wisdom decided to suspend the House three minutes short of the ten minutes.
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It appeared the idea was to allow the whips enough time to whip their Members who may be lurking in their offices or attending to Committee meetings within the precincts of Parliament to show up to be counted to make up for the required number for the quorum. However, after the bell had been rang for the entire one hour for the suspension, the situation had not seen any significant improvement.
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At their return from the suspension, Parliamentnews360.com could independently count only 35 MPs on the Majority side of the House, while the Minority side also still had only 26 MPs in the Chamber. However, we could also count about 15 Minority MPs who were just outside the Chamber, around the coffee shop area sipping their tea or coffee, while others engaged in discussions.
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After another one hour of back and forth on the Floor, there was no other choice for the Speaker than to adjourn the House till Thursday, November 11, 2021 10 O\u2019clock in the forenoon as it is said in the Parliamentary parlance.
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Source: Clement Akoloh||parliamentnews360.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proceedings in the Parliament of Ghana screeched to halt on Wednesday, November 10, 2021 after the House failed to raise the minimum number of Members of Parliament required to do business on the Floor on behalf of the good people of Ghana. A visibly frustrated presiding Second Deputy Speaker, Andrew Asiama Amoako had to express […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[666,667,668,669,665],"class_list":{"0":"post-1125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-news","8":"tag-andrew-asiama-amoako","9":"tag-ghanas-parliament-screeches-to-halt-over-quorum","10":"tag-governs-kwame-agbodza","11":"tag-order-48","12":"tag-presiding-second-deputy-speaker"},"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n