{"id":243843,"date":"2016-08-29T06:53:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T06:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=243843"},"modified":"2016-08-29T06:53:54","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T06:53:54","slug":"george-loh-defends-parliament-recall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=243843","title":{"rendered":"George Loh defends Parliament recall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vice Chairperson on Parliament\u2019s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, George Loh\u00a0has dismissed suggestions that summoning the House from recess amounts to a waste of the country\u2019s scarce financial resources.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Speaker of Parliament Edward Doe Adjaho recalled members to a one week sitting <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/08\/27\/mps-recall-in-connection-with-mahamas-ford-gift-saga\/\"><strong>beginning 1<sup>st<\/sup> September<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;6s0GWOk8sz1fTMfIjhxUaqdZCeuKmTSU&#8221;]There are indications this was instigated by a petition from the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the Speaker over bribery allegations against President John Mahama who was given a $100,000 Ford vehicle by a Burkinabe contractor.<\/p>\n<p>The contractor is said to have benefited from some lucrative contracts from government.<\/p>\n<p>Critics have raised issues with the recall and the financial burden it places on the national coffers.<\/p>\n<p>But Speaking to <strong>Citi News<\/strong>, George Loh said even though the expenditure on such emergency summons may be high, it is important for Ghana\u2019s democratic process.<\/p>\n<p>Well it\u2019s true that it may be a waste of the taxpayers\u2019 money but the bottom line is that the motion has been filed and the procedure says that the Speaker must summon Parliament. It\u2019s all part of our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo in one vane one could argue that it is a waste of public money, yes, because public money will be spent on the whole recall but I am saying that our constitution allows it. We drafted the constitution for ourselves, we have opted for democracy and it doesn\u2019t come cheap,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019ll resist probe into Mahama\u2019s ford gift<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Deputy Majority Leader, Alfred Agbesi had said his side <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/06\/28\/well-resist-probe-into-mahamas-ford-gift-majority-mps\/\"><strong>will\u00a0resist<\/strong><\/a><\/span> any attempt by the NPP to raise the issue on the floor of Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will say without any reservation at all that if that issue should be raised in Parliament, we on our side we shall resist with all the forces at our disposal,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<br \/>\n<a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlloteyGodwin\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @AlloteyGodwin<\/a><br \/>\n<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=\/^http:\/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+':\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');<\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vice Chairperson on Parliament\u2019s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, George Loh\u00a0has dismissed suggestions that summoning the House from recess amounts to a waste of the country\u2019s scarce financial resources. Last week, the Speaker of Parliament Edward Doe Adjaho recalled members to a one week sitting beginning 1st September. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;6s0GWOk8sz1fTMfIjhxUaqdZCeuKmTSU&#8221;]There are indications this was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":212279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/212279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}