Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South constituency, and ranking member of Parliament’s privileges committee Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has stated that Sarah Adwoa Safo’s seat as MP for Dome-Kwabenya has not been declared vacant.
This follows reports that the clerk of Parliament has been given authority to declare an MP’s seat vacant for failing to appear before the privileges committee.
Addressing the media on Friday, July 2022 Ricketts-Hagan said, “In the case of Adwoa Safo, we were unable to meet her.” As a result, the committee agreed to defer any decision on her to the Speaker.”
“Yesterday there was an article … that the chairman of the committee had gone public to say that, the committee had declared Adwoa Safo’s seat vacant, and that the matter is being referred to the clerk to basically proceed to the EC.
“First and foremost, nobody in this Parliament apart from the Speaker has the right to declare anybody’s seat vacant. That was not the job given to us; our job was to hear the three colleagues and to find out whether there was a reasonable or legitimate reason why they didn’t come to Parliament and report to the Speaker,” Mr. Hagan said.
Adwoa Safo has faced harsh criticism for her continued absence from Parliament, with Speaker of the House Alban Bagbin denying media reports that he had granted her permission to do so.
