Minority Chief Whip, Frank Annor-Dompreh has called on the Speaker of Parliament to issue ‘disciplinary action’ against Acting Chief Executive of the Petroleum Commission, Emeafa Hardcastle for alleged derogarory remarks.
A confusion rose between both before the vetting of Defence Minister-designate, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah on Tuesday, January 28 2025 when committee suspended sitting for few minutes.
During this break, a verbal altercation reportedly took place between the Minority Chief Whip and Hardcastle.
As Frank Annoh-Dompreh was walking out of the room, Hardcastle allegedly made remarks including, “You are threatening me that you are taking me on because who are you? What do you mean by taking me on? You are a micro-minority. Doesn’t Afenyo-Markin himself use that phrase? I don’t have time for that. You think you can bully me here?”
Commenting on the matter on the floor of Parliament, Annoh-Dompreh was enraged about the nature of the exchange and the potential implications of Hardcastle’s comments.
He described the utterances from Emeafa as as “unacceptable”.
“What has happened to me today can happen to any of you. A lady I have never met in my life, the acting CEO for the petroleum commission. I didn’t provoke her in anyway suddenly insults were being thrown at me, silly, stupid, useless. Speaker I felt abused and there and then I felt how can a man be killed in his own backyard. I reached out to the chair of the committee and reported same matter, members who were with me can corroborate with me.
“I want to put this on record that even though she passed by to render a certain lame apology it is still unacceptable. Speaker I had to resort to this approach,” Annor-Dompreh said.
Roads and Highways Minister, Governs Kwame Agbodza appealed to the Minority Chief Whip to let issues rest.
“I took consolation in the fact that my colleague confirmed that she approached and apologized profusely. I appeal to him to let this matter rest,” he stated.
The Leader of the Women’s Caucus in Parliament and First Deputy Whip of the majority group, Comfort Doyoe also appealed to the Minority Chief Whip to withdraw his application to the Speaker, expressing her preparedness to resolve the matter personally.
“Mr Speaker, as a leader of the women’s caucus in this Parliament, I will plead with the Chief Whip to leave the case to me. I am going to meet with the lady in question and advise her on how to handle issues. This is a case between a woman and a man.
“Mr Speaker, the woman has apologised already, so I am pleading with the Chief Whip to leave the matter to the women and me, as the head of the Women’s Caucus, to advise her on how to address issues when she is in our premises and Parliament,” she stated.
Responding to the matter, the Speaker said “I’ll proceed to advise the lady concerned and personally go into the matter take the appropriate actions and report back to the house. I will take action on the matter myself and report to the house.”
He added: “With our Parliament there’s no democracy. With our respect of our Parliament and parliamentarians there’s no democracy. We are the protectors of the rights and dignities of our people. If we ourselves are endangered species then we have a problem.”
The post Annor-Dompreh wants Speaker Bagbin to take ‘disciplinary action’ against Emeafa Hardcastle for ‘insults’ first appeared on 3News.
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