An Accounting professor, Kwaku Asare, has charged the leadership of Parliament to declare seats of Members of Parliament who have been absent for more than 15 days vacant.

According to him, the legislature must implement the 2018 Supreme Court ruling on absentee MPs that a lawmaker automatically vacates their seat after 15 continuous days of being absent from the House without permission, in accordance with article 97 of the 1992 constitution.

The nation was thrown into a series of discussions after the Dome Kwabenya MP was accused of blackmailing government with a list of demands, including the Deputy Majority Leader post.

Sarah Adwoa Safo was last seen in Parliament in December 2021, when she appeared in the House to dismiss claims by the Minority Caucus that she was impersonated. She has since not returned to the Chamber.

Subsequently, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) leadership admitted that her absence is affecting the party and government business.

They also revealed that all options are currently on the table, including triggering the constitutional provision to remove her as MP and declare her seat vacant.

However, the Minority in Parliament has described the contemplation to remove Madam Safo from Parliament as “discriminatory and unprincipled attacks.”

The NDC MPs are also pushing for the removal of two other NPP MPs – Assin Central MP, Kennedy Agyapong and the Ayawaso Central, Henry Quartey.

According to them, the said lawmakers “were absent without permission from the Speaker, Alban S.K. Bagbin, for 18 working days each.”

Reacting to the ongoing controversy, Prof Asare intimated that Parliament’s Clerk must immediately begin applying the law.

According to him, the Clerk will be in contempt of court if nothing is done at all.

“When it comes to being absent in Parliament, people start saying 'let’s be gracious and empathetic.' But we must either be a nation of law, or we are not.

“So I think the Clerk should, on Monday, write to the Electoral Commission that any MP, not just Adwoa [Safo] who has been absent for more than 15 days, have vacated the seat, and a by-election should be held,” he said.

However, the former MP for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak, disagreed.

He argues that the MP must be given at a hearing at the Privileges Committee.

“My disagreement stems from the constitutional provision. This has to go to [the Privileges] Committee; the Committee has to deliberate on it; it doesn’t even have to come to the plenary after the deliberation.

“The Committee decides whether or not you are guilty. And once that is done, it doesn’t even go to the plenary,” he said.