Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin has advocated tougher measures to address the issue of MP tardiness.
Beginning next year, the Chamber’s access points will be locked at 10:00 a.m. on each sitting day. Latecomers will be locked out until the Speaker decides to reopen the doors.
As an alternative, the Speaker has proposed starting sittings at 2:00 PM rather than the present 10:00 AM time. Committees could convene in the morning and have reports ready for discussion in the afternoon.
Bagbin recognized the difficulty in attending early sessions and encouraged the two caucuses to explore and propose alternate options.
He stressed that if no agreement is reached, the suggested measures will be enforced beginning with the next session.
On Friday, December 8, the Speaker, Alban Bagbin, informed MPs of this.
“At 10 am, the doors will be locked. The Speaker will be in and it will take some time before the doors will be opened. Not that they won’t be opened but it will take some time. And so if you are not able to comply with it, let us all agree that we will start sitting in the afternoon, from 2 p.m. or 4 p.m.; the Committees will have their meetings in the morning; reports will be ready for us to consider in the afternoon; and then by the time we adjourn around 8 p.m., the traffic situation will have improved.
“Your coming to Parliament too will not be that early, so you can decide to leave at noon and by that time, there would have been less traffic and you won’t consume more fuel and then you can come in. I can see that it is not easy for members to report that early for sitting so the two Caucuses either have joint Caucus meetings or, at your level, discuss these things and come back with proposals. If not, these are the measures that I want to put in place which will take effect from our next meeting.”
