COVID-19: Minority Wants Parliamentary Sittings Suspended

24.03.2020 | Modern Ghana

The Minority in Parliament wants parliamentary sittings suspended in the wake of the deadly coronavirus. Eight Members of Parliament were on Monday told to self-quarantine after embarking on recent trips abroad.

This brings to ten the total number of MPs who have been asked to isolate themselves.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, the Member of Parliament for the Asawase constituency Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak indicated that the Minority had sent a Memorandum to the Speaker of Parliament on Friday, March 20 among other things calling for the suspension of the House.

According to him, he was surprised that Speaker said he has not received the memorandum yet.

“I hope that by now the Speaker should have received it because I am aware that it was sent to his office on Friday. We are proposing a number of things including that the house suspends sittings because, how things are going, if you listen to other parliaments around the world and how the thing is escalating, one of our views is that why not rather look at what businesses are of urgent need so that they can be attended to then you can suspend the house.”

“When we say suspend, that means we will not be rising, we will only not be meeting regularly but rather we will put the matters together and find a day where we will come and deal with them in bulk”.

The Minority Chief Whip also argued that instead of waiting for an MP or staff of the house to be tested positive which will lead to the closure of the entire house, the house should rather be suspended now.