Accra (Greater Accra) 1st June '99

There was a debate in Parliament on Friday between the leaders of the House on who should answer urgent questions.

While Dr. Kwabena Adjei, Majority Leader contended that "unless there is a real emergency or crisis situation that threatens our survival, an urgent question should and must be answered by the respective minister in whose name it stands."

Contrary, Mr Joseph Henry Mensah, Minority Leader, said since "ministers are agents of the President" and only appear in Parliament to respond to members' questions on his behalf, the House should adopt a mechanism whereby urgent questions can be answered for ministers in their absence".

He was of the view that if this is not done, the situation will lead to undue delays in members having their questions answered, thus impacting negatively on the work of Parliament.

Mr Mensah filed a question at the beginning of the second meeting of the third session of Parliament last week to be answered by the Minister of Defence.

Seeing its importance, the Speaker admitted the question as urgent. It sought to ask the Minister: "On whose orders did Armed Forces personnel take part in the AMA's exercise to demolish the Pier Hotel and whether those orders were lawful in terms of the Armed Forces Act; and what was the military aspect of the demolition exercise, that GAF personnel were sent to handle".

To his surprise, his question has been deleted from the order paper for more than once.

Explaining the reason for the deletion, Dr. Adjei said the responsible Minister, Lt-Col (rtd) E.K.T. Donkoh, who was to appear before the House to answer the question, is out of the country.

Dr. Adjei could not, however, tell the House when the Minister will be back from his trip.

The Minority Leader was not satisfied with the explanation and referred to Standing Order 60 (3) of the House which states that a Minister shall not take more than three weeks to respond to a question from the House.

Giving his ruling on the matter, Mr Kenneth Dzirasah, First Deputy Speaker who was in the chair, charged the leadership of the House to ensure that urgent questions before the House are treated as such.