New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s Tema West MP, Carlos Ahenkorah has apologised for snatching some ballot papers during the election of the Speaker of Parliament on Thursday.
The former Deputy Trade Minister said his action was to force the House to organise a rerun of the election due to various interference of the process by members of the opposition NDC.
“Just as my colleague from the other side took the ballot box away on 3 occasions, I also grabbed a few ballot papers before they could be counted so as to force a rerun.
“It’s a very tough situation to have opposition as a speaker especially when he’s the president in the absence of Nana Addo and his vice not to mention how parliament would function by passing the president’s policies and laws to pave way for development” he explained.
The legislator left his colleagues and Ghanaians who were monitoring the election process in shock when he steadily walked up to the table where the ballots were being counted and snatched a handful.
He then bolted towards the exit points of the chamber being pursued by some members of the NDC.
But Mr. Ahenkorah says although he has no regrets because of his love and dedication to the NPP, he is heartbroken by the development of the day.
“We’ve not seen the end of this yet. With this success, they would tell us what they want and what they don’t in parliament because the whip system has been compromised. This is so sad. I’ll die for my party any day.
“I did it for the grassroots who relied on us in power to survive, the president who needs some peace to run the country and the greater NPP party as a whole because we cannot always allow the NDC to threaten and vilify us,” said.
According to him, “the NPP in me couldn’t be controlled. I apologise but I tried.”
Find his full submission below:
My party the NPP of course enjoys a slim majority in parliament courtesy the independent candidate from Fomena.
By this arithmetic, the NPP was supposed to occupy the right side of the speaker in the chamber. When we got to parliament, the opposition had occupied our seats.
We tried to convince and work things out with them but they declined whilst almost assaulting the marshals of parliament. We conceded because of the inauguration ahead of us and sat in their space. Then the clerk of parliament announced that the injuncted Assin North MP couldn’t vote by virtue of a court order served on him.
After a long heated debate, the NDC still wouldn’t yield. Leadership went into conclave and returned with one of the most unfavourable agreements ever.
