Muntaka: Adwoa Sarfo Is Absent Because She Risks Losing Her Children To US Social Welfare
Member of Parliament for Asawase Constituency and Minority Chief Whip in Parliament, Muntaka Mubarak has revealed his absent colleague on the other side in Parliament, Sarah Adwoa Sarfo is on the verge of losing her kids to the United States Social Welfare.
According to Muntaka, that can’t be trivialised.
“She is talking about her children and if she is not careful, social welfare in America will seize these children. You cannot pretend that this is not a serious thing”, he said in an interview on JoyNews’ PM Express.
Additionally, he revealed that the Dome Kwabenya Member of Parliament didn’t stay away from Parliamentary proceedings all these while without going through the Parliamentary laid down procedures.
He recounted that “I’m reliably informed that she wrote leave of absence and her leadership refused to recommend it to the Speaker. She wrote a leave of absence citing her children and challenges but because her leadership needed her at all costs, refused to recommend.
“So she noticed along the line that she is constantly being marked absent so this time around, she wrote a letter with another leave of absence directly to Mr. Speaker that ‘Mr. Speaker, I’m supposed to seek permission from you but the rules of this House are such that I have to pass it through my leadership and I’ve noticed that my leadership has refused to recommend my leave of absence so I’m writing directly to you’.
“Getting this, Mr. Speaker wrote to her leadership, the same leadership that had refused to recommend her leave of absence. What the Majority leader said was that ‘I’m not aware’ and based on that the Speaker refused to grant the leave of absence”.
Muntaka described the action of the Speaker and leadership of the Majority as “very unfair”. To the Minority Chief Whip, the Speaker should have rather asked the leadership of the majority in Parliament to recommend Adwoa Sarfo’s leave of absence rather than writing to them for confirmation.
In Parliament yesterday, the Speaker of Parliament referred three MPs including the Dome Kwabenya MP, to the Privileges Committee of Parliament to probe their reason for absenting themselves from 15 sittings of the Parliament in a meeting without a written statement to the Speaker, a directive that means the three risks being stripped off the position of MP if they are not able to give tangible reason to back their absence.
This was met with stern opposition from Muntaka Mubarak who in vain, sought the backing of his colleagues to resist the intended action of the Speaker.
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
