Accra, Feb.19, GNA- The Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Peter Ala Adjetey, Thursday observed that, the media had created the wrong impression that the 2004 budget had been approved.

"We only approved of the Financial Policy of the government for the year 2004, but the budget estimates are still before the House for consideration by the various committees before approval," he said.

The Speaker made the statement when Parliament for the second time this week had to adjourn earlier than usual to allow the various Parliamentary committees to complete work on the "examination of the budget estimates for Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs)."

The House adjourned at 1045 hours on Thursday morning, which was after 45 minutes of proceedings, to allow the various committees to continue their consideration of the budget estimates.

At least seven Parliamentary Committees have been listed on the Order Paper for Thursday to hold Budget Hearing meetings.

The Majority Leader, Mr. Felix Owusu-Agyapong, told Journalists that the early adjournments was a deliberate move to allow committees time to finish the consideration of the budget estimates and prepare reports to be laid before that House.

"Until we have committee reports ready to be laid before the House, we will continue to have early adjournments," he said.

Earlier, proceedings in the House had begun with only seven (7) members in the chamber, five on the majority side and two on the minority side of the House.

At exactly 1000 hours when the Speaker entered the chamber, only seven members were present, not even the leadership of the House, comprising the majority and minority leaders, their deputies, as well as the whips, were present.

During the correction of Votes and Proceedings, the only two minority members sneaked out of the chamber as the majority leader, Mr. Owusu-Agyapong walked in.

At 1009 hours when the Speaker queried the absence of the minority members, the Majority Leader told the Speaker that the minority members were in a caucus meeting since 0830 hours, but he did not have any explanation to why most of the majority members themselves were not in at that time.

Mr. John Mahama, NDC-Bole Bamboye, later walked in and told the Speaker that the minority caucus meeting was to end soon for members to report to the House.

At the commencement of Public Business at 1014 hours, there were 33 minority members present against 17 majority members. 19 Feb 04