The Member of Parliament for Effutu, Mr Alexander Afenyo-Markin, was last Friday stopped from contributing to a statement on the floor of the House in Fanti, his mother tongue.
Mr Afenyo-Markin, contributing to a statement made by the Member for Tano North, Ms Freda Prempeh, on the challenges faced by the Ghana Prisons Service, began by speaking Fanti but was stopped by the First Deputy Speaker, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, who presided over proceedings.
Mr Barton-Odro stopped him when the Deputy Majority Leader, Mr Alfred Agbesi, drew his attention to Standing Order 47 of the House.
Standing Order 47 of Parliament states: “The proceedings of Parliament shall ordinarily be conducted in the English language, except that a member may exercise the option to address the House in either Akan, Nzema, Ga, Ewe, Hausa or Dagbani provided the facilities exist for its interpretation. "
Mr Agbesi contended that the facilities did not exist for the interpretation of Fanti; therefore, Mr Afenyo-Markin's contribution in the local language, if allowed to continue, would be a breach of the standing order.
Prior to Mr Agbesi's point, asserted as part of his argument, Mr Barton-Oduro asked the Effutu MP if he intended to translate one sentence he made in Fanti into English before proceeding to another, to which Mr Afenyo-Markin replied in the affirmative.
But when he began, it became clear that he intended to make his entire statement in Fanti and then after that translate it into English.
Barton-Odro's ruling
Mr Barton-Odro was of the view that waiting for Mr Afenyo-Markin to complete his contribution in Fanti before translating it would "waste everybody's time."
He also stated that the facilities did not exist for the translation of Fanti and, therefore, the member could not proceed.
The Effutu MP complied with the ruling but, in a jest, said nobody should blame him if, in his contribution, he made grammatical errors.
Background
Mr Afenyo-Markin, a day earlier, hinted that he intended to make contributions in the House in his mother tongue.
Making a case for the use of local languages in parliamentary discourse, he said after more than 20 years of uninterrupted democratic practice, Parliament should allow the use of local languages.
He said not every member of the House had mastery of the English Language and that such MPs should be allowed to use the language they were most fluent in.
His statement was made against the background of grammatical errors made by the Member for Adentan, Mr Emmanuel Nii Ashie Moore, and the Member for Effigya Sekyere East, Mr Henric David Yeboah, when reggae musician and radio presenter, Blakk Rasta, appeared before the Privileges Committee of Parliament more than a week ago.
Mr Ashie Moore, in a question posed to the Editor of the Searchlight newspaper, Mr Ken Kuranchie, said, " I want to find out from Mr Ken Kuranchie, in your paper, did you attributed the story to Adom FM online? Did you also spoke to Blakk Rasta? "
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