Kennedy Agyapong with his lawyers, Afenyo Markin (left) and KT Hammond (middle)
The three New Patriotic Party (NPP) Members of Parliament who wrote to the Privileges Committee to be excused from its hearing of the contempt case against the NPP MP for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, have been replaced.
The three NPP MPs, Samuel Nsowah-Djan, MP for Upper Denkyira West; Cynthia Morrison, MP for Agona West and Naana Eyiah, MP for Gomoa Central, all from the Central Region, in their letter to the Privileges Committee said they could not be part of the committee’s public hearing of Kennedy Agyapong because of their relationship with the contemnor.
According to them, the contemnor is the chairman of the Central regional caucus of NPP MPs and that could affect their judgement on the case and since they do not want to be seen to be bias they wanted to excuse themselves from the hearing.
The new MPs to replace the three are the MP for Adentan, Yaw Buaben Asamoa; MP for Jaman South, Yaw Afful and MP for Ablekuma North, Nana Akua Afriyie.
The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who announced the replacement in parliament yesterday was, however, not happy with the manner in which the three members wrote directly to the chairman of the Privileges Committee without using the right channel.
According to the majority leader, the three MPs should have first informed him and leadership of parliament of their intention to be excused from the sittings of the committee to hear the contemptuous case against the Assin Central MP.
The minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu also said that the manner the three MPs excused themselves from the work of the committee is very worrying and should not be encouraged.
Now that the committee has been properly constituted following the voluntary exemption of the three MPs, the committee is expected to proceed to do its public hearing of the contempt case against the MP for Assin Central.
Mr Agyapong was alleged to have described parliament as useless institution and the contemptuous matter was raised on the floor of the House by the minority chief whip and National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Asawase, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka and called on parliament to drag their colleague before the Privileges Committee for allegedly demeaning the image of parliament.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr