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The minority leadership in Parliament wants the House suspended to buy time for colleagues currently in their constituencies to submit their nomination form.
As of 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, only 16 deputies were present in the 275-member chamber.
Deputy minority leader James Klutse Avedzi, who raised the issue in the room, described it as worrying.
Speaking during the consideration of a USD 243 million facility for the acquisition of standard gauge rolling stock, Mr. Avedzi said that the commencement of public activities on the floor should begin only when more deputies are present.
“We cannot be making decisions when out of a House of 275 people there are only 16 of us here.
“We are not doing our country any good. Mr. President, let’s get the numbers, then the members can really debate the issues and then we’ll go and get them approved.
But Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu said he was surprised by the deputies’ stance.
According to him, this is because the leadership had agreed to relax the rules due to the activities of the parliamentarians before the 2020 elections.
“Mr. President, yesterday we discussed this extensively and decided that these are not normal times, especially this week when members have to be in their various constituencies to present.
“However, yesterday we appealed to ourselves to anticipate that we will not have a full house, but that members should take advantage so that normal business can be done.
“We agreed to this and I am surprised that the deputy minority leader gets up the next day after we made the appeal to say that the house cannot continue.
“I think we can move on because this is non-contentious and was adopted anonymously at the committee level so I don’t see what will stop us,” he added.
In giving his ruling, the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, urged members to stick to their decisions to ensure a smooth transaction of business on the House floor.
“Certain decisions were made yesterday regarding allowing this chamber to continue and I can see that some members are nodding in that regard because they know what we agreed on, so let’s move on.
Meanwhile, the executive arm of the government is expected to present a total of 42 bills for Parliament’s consideration now that the House has resumed.
In a statement released Monday and signed by Parliament’s director of Public Affairs, Kate Addo, the bills are expected to cover various sectors.
They include the Judicial Service Bill, 2020, Creative Arts Bill, 2020, State Council Bill, 2020, Wildlife Bill, 2020, among others.
Currently, a total of 19 bills are before various Committees of Parliament for consideration, some of these bills include the Bill of Exemptions, 2019 and the Bill against Money Laundering, 2020.
The statement further stated that other bills that also include the Public Universities Bill of 2020, the Ghana Cocoa Board (Amendment) Bill of 2017 and the Center Development Corporation Bill 2020 Oil will also go through a second reading.
