CHINA – SEPTEMBER 10: Hannah Tetteh, Ghana’s minister of trade, speaks at the 2009 World Economic Forum Meeting of New Champions in Dalian, Liaoning province, China, on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009. The WEF Meeting of New of New Champions takes place until Sept. 12. (Photo by Nelson Ching/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Foreign Affairs Minister and MP for the Awutu Senya West constituency, Hanna Tetteh, Minister of Agriculture, Fiifi Kwetey and 19 other MPs have been sued for consistently absenting themselves from Parliament.
Odekro, an advocacy platform seeking to promote transparency and accountability which sued the MPs had earlier petitioned the Speaker of Parliament complaining about the conduct of some 125 legislators.
In a letter dated December 2 2015, Odekro listed the names of 125 out of the 275 MPs, who it said are in breach of Article 97(1) (c) of the Constitution which states that an MP shall vacate his or her seat if:
“He is absent, without the permission in writing of the Speaker and he is unable to offer a reasonable explanation to the Parliamentary Committee on Privileges from fifteen sittings of a meeting of Parliament during any period that Parliament has been summoned to meet and continues to meet.”
The group argues that they resorted to the court because “the Speaker of Parliament failed to acknowledge receipt of our letter and he also failed to honour our request to declare the seats of the defaulting MPs vacant.
Consequently, we have instructed our lawyers to file a suit at the High Court asking the court to declare the seats of the 21 worst-offending MPs vacant.”
16. Ken Ohene Agyapong ( Assin Central) – 89 Sittings
17. Collins Dauda ( Asutifi South) – 89 Sittings
18. Ahmed Arthur (Okaikwei South) – 84 Sittings
19. Grace Addo ( Manso Nkwanta) – 83 Sittings
20. Joseph Boakye Adu Danquah (Abuakwa North) – 76 Sittings
21. Edwin Nii Lantey Vanderpuye – 75 Sittings
The group further added that “by this action, Odekro intends to establish a legal precedent with which to sue the remaining defaulting MPs to vacate their seats.”
An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.
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