Dome-Kwabenya MP, Adwoa Safo breaches 15-day rule; calls intensify for seat to be declared vacant

Calls have intensified for the Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya, Sarah Adwoa Safo to be dismissed from Parliament and her seat declared vacant.

This follows revelations that the embattled MP has contravened the standing orders of the House which stipulates that an MP shall not absent him/herself from parliamentary sittings for fifteen (15) consecutive days without recourse to the Speaker.

Article 97 (1) (c) of the 1992 Constitution and Order 17 of the Standing Orders of Parliament state emphatically: “A Member shall not absent himself during a meeting for more than fifteen sittings without the permission in writing of the Speaker. Any member infringing this Order shall have his conduct referred to the Privileges Committee.”

Checks by your authoritative The Newsroom portal reveals that records in the House have marked the MP as absent for more than the stipulated time.

Indeed her last appearance in the Chamber was in December during the vote by Majority MPs to overturn the earlier rejection of the 2022 budget by NDC MPs.

Efforts to get her to return to the House for another crucial vote to approve the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) Bill appears to have proved futile.

She’s said to be demanding reinstatement to her previous position on the Majority’s front bench as the Deputy Leader, a position she held in the seventh Parliament.

Subsequently, President Akufo-Addo on Monday, February 21, 2022, summoned a crunch meeting of the NPP’s National Executives and the Majority’s leadership in Parliament to deliberate over the continuos absence of Dome-Kwabenya MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo from the Chamber.

The meeting called at the instance of the President was expected to take a firm decision on the refusal of the MP to return to her Parliamentary and Ministerial duties.

With the outcome of that meeting still unknown, some members of the majority caucus are pushing for the expulsion of the MP from parliament if she fails to show up in the chamber this week.

The NPP MPs who are incensed with her non-appearance have attributed the delay in the passage of the controversial E-Levy bill to her absence.

Some NPP MPs who are outraged over her conduct like the New Juaben South MP, Michael Okyere Baafi are set to invoke the standing orders if she fails to show up this week.

The Member of Parliament for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong adding his voice to the calls, criticized his ‘baby mama’ over her conduct.

Speaking to the state broadcaster, GBC on Monday, Mr Agyapong took the MP, who is the mother of two of his kids, to the cleaners and described her as a failure.

“She says she wants to be a Deputy Majority Leader. That woman has failed in life. A whole cabinet minister [for Gender, Children and Social Protection] now demanding that she should be made a Deputy? She should go to hell. Don’t think I have two kids with her and therefore I will never speak to the truth, I will speak the truth even at gunpoint and die,” he said.

The MP who is on a leave of absence from her role as the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection is said to be peeved over the reversal of her dismissal of the School Feeding boss, Madam Quashigah.

That decision which sources say bruised her ego saw her abandoning the Ministry as she packed bag and baggage to Europe.

A few months back, videos of her dancing on the social media app, TikTok went viral with a section of the populace calling into question her state of mind.

Source: Thenewsroomonline