The Executive Director for African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr Rasheed Draman says the Minority will be in violation of some provisions of Parliament’s standing orders if they continue to abandon parliamentary business.

This, he stated, is due to the fact that absenting oneself from Parliament for a period of time clearly violates the legislature's standing orders.

“If this continues, they might be in violation of some provision of the standing orders because if you absent yourself continuously for a number of days assuming these trials are going to continue, then I think they must be in violation of their own standing orders,” he said in an interview on JoyNews’ The Pulse on Thursday.

Dr Draman’s comments come after the Minority Caucus abandoned sitting to accompany and solidarise with the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson and Assin North MP, James Gyakye Quayson on their respective criminal trials.

The Minority Leader earlier served notice that all NDC MPs will not be in the House or participate in its business on any day the Assin North MP, James Gyakye Quayson is to appear in court.

This explains the boycott of Parliament on Thursday.

But in response to the NDC MPs' strategy to soldarise with their colleagues, Dr Draman expressed surprise that the Minority MPs carried out their decision.

https://myjoyonline.com/we-will-stand-by-our-members-anytime-government-harasses-them-minority

According to him, he least expected the Minority to go on that tangent considering how critical their oversight role of the incumbent government in the legislature is.

He said he expected the MPs to leave the issues of solidarity to the party.

“To leave the business of the House and to leave the job that Ghanaians are paying you to do is something else,”he noted.

https://myjoyonline.com/dont-cripple-parliament-over-decision-to-attend-gyakye-quaysons-trial-acepa-tells-minority

Dr Draman said if this situation persists, it is going to cripple the business of the House because quorum is going to be affected.

He added that he expected the leadership of the Minority to engage the entire leadership of parliament to resolve the issue.

https://myjoyonline.com/parliament-forced-to-adjourn-after-minority-mps-abandoned-proceedings/

Meanwhile, Parliament was forced to adjourn Thursday’s sitting without dealing with some items on the order paper as a result of the NDC MPs' absence.