It is emerging that the Speaker of the 8th Parliament Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has not been carrying his weight about only in Ghana but abroad as far as his position as the head of the legislative arm of government is concerned.
DAYBREAK is learning that Mr Bagbin who has gone on a two-week break to seek medical attention in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been lording over Ghana’s consulate officials in Dubai anytime he travelled to that country after he was elected to the position of a Speaker.
Like he has been beating drums lately telling everyone who cares to listen how powerful he is in the scheme of things in Ghana, this paper has been told such is the case whenever he travels to faraway Dubai, UAE commercial capital.
Mr Bagbin who is on a medical trip to that country, in a previous visit made things too uncomfortable for staff of the Ghana mission there.
A source within the consulate says he was at his usual best when he visited the Office the last time he visited the UAE.
The former Nadowli-Kaleo Member of Parliament (MP)) on that visit spoke and talked to senior officials there anyhow boosting his position in the country.
He allegedly heaped so many insults on a lady by the name Lillian “like she was his child” for no apparent reason.
He reportedly ordered the officials there to give him a treatment not different from President Akufo-Addo or Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
He is alleged to have told the Ghana mission officers there that he was as special as the President and the Vice President.
On one occasion when the staff visited him during his routine medical check-ups, the staff intimated that the Speaker told them he can on any day cost the Majority as far as government business was concerned, and his recent antics are a direct reflection of his unguarded utterances.
According to the source, he told them he can sabotage the government on very important occasions when a very important decision has to be taken.
At the hospital in Dubai, the staff member said he told them all he has to do is to absent himself on the said day so that a deputy to him which in this case will be Member of Parliament (MP) for Bekwai, Joseph Osei-Owusu would have to take his position as Speaker so that their numerical strength of 138 will reduce to the level of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority of 137.
This in his view will make it impossible for the governing party to vote for that decision. Back home, Mr Bagbin has been boasting about his place in government upgrading himself to number two instead of his early claim that he was number three. He is even claiming that he can lead a charge for the impeachment of President Akufo-Addo
He had said barely a week ago in the Volta Region where Parliament had a retreat that, Parliament and for that matter him, can impeach the President but the President cannot do the same to him.
The Speaker and for that matter, Parliament have been in the news following a decision by the Minority to reject the 2022 budget statement presented to the House by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta about two weeks ago.
The NDC Minority had rejected the budget statement after the Majority staged a walkout basing their decision on the refusal of the Speaker to walk out the NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketiah from the public gallery after he ordered the Finance Minister out of the Chamber.
The Minority had based their rejection on five areas including the proposed 1.75 per cent electronic levy. Following that decision, the Speaker jetted off to Dubai for medical attention over the weekend.
But on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, the Majority who boycotted the Chamber last week leading to the Minority rejecting the budget rescinded that decision by overturning Mr Bagbin decision.
Sitting in the chair as the Speaker, Joe Osei-Owusu using their numbers including himself passed the budget into law.
As expected, the Minority has also rejected the action by their colleagues calling it unconstitutional.
