OccupyGhana, a civil society group, has called for the prosecution of Members of Parliament who engaged in a free-for-all fight on Monday 20th December 2021.
Members of Parliament engaged in a brawl on Monday 20th December 2021 when they were about to cast their vote on the government’s controversial E-levy.
The chaos occurred when the Finance Committee of Parliament had given the green light for the 1.75% E-Levy to be discussed on the floor of the House following a majority decision at the Committee level.
Speaker Alban Bagbin was absent from the house when the incident occurred.
First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu, had openly expressed interest to vote on the E-levy when the need be.
A video which had gone viral on social media captured MPs punching their colleagues at will when the debate got out of hand and Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu stood up to vacate his seat.
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Commenting on the issue in a statement, OccupyGhana said it was deeply dismayed and disappointed at what is becoming the regular, violent misbehavior of Members of Parliament.
According to the statement, the acts of assault, battery and unlawful fights watched on live TV constitute criminal acts and that people of Ghana should never be told that MPs can get away with crimes once they commit those crimes in Parliament.
“The acts of assault, battery and unlawful fights we watched on live TV constitute criminal acts, and the people of Ghana should never be told that MPs can get away with crimes once they commit those crimes in Parliament.”
“We doubt that this Parliament and its leadership will have the decency or courage to charge and punish any of these members for contempt under the Parliament Act, 1965 (Act 300). But surely, those with prosecutorial power must institute criminal prosecution.”
While we all may bear some blame for tolerating this level of despicably bad behaviour from our elected officials, in giving them a pass whenever they misbehave and then apologize, this is when Ghanaians draw a line in the sand. Ghana deserves better. We need to restore confidence in Parliament by punishing every erring MP,” excerpts of the statement said.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Vivian Adu | [email protected]
