Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Mike Oquaye has suspended sitting for thirty minutes over what he describes as procedural irregularities on the part of the Minority in Parliament over their application submitted to Speaker to probe allegations of extortion on the part of Ministry of Trade from expatriate companies.
It would be recalled that on the 29th of December, 2017, an application by the Minority led by its chief whip, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak-Muntaka filed a motion, calling for investigations into the levy and collection by the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Ghana cedi equivalent of various sums of money in U.S.dollars, from expatriate businesses and related matters during the recently held Ghana Expatriate Business Awards in Accra.
Parliament accordingly summoned on January 5, 2018 to consider the motion filed by the minority.
The Speaker after allowing for debate from both the majority and minority sides, indicated that the application filed was fraught with procedural irregularities and subsequently suspended sitting for thirty minutes to allow the anomalies to be rectified and resubmitted.
After almost two hours break Parliament resumes sitting on the matter.
Speaker takes his seat and invites Minority to comment. The Minority challenges ruling of speaker and returns with a decision not to correct the error as pointed out by the Speaker before break.
Speaker nonetheless ignores the position of the Minority and constitutes a 5-member committee to probe the matter. The members of the committee are Ameyaw Kyeremeh (Chairman), Yaw Buabeng Asamoah, Mark Assibey Yeboah, James Klutse Avedzi, and Dominic Ayine.
The Speaker adjourns sitting.
