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The Member of Parliament for Effutu, Mr Alexander Afenyo -Markin, yesterday made a case for the use of local languages in Parliamentary discourse.

He said not every member of the House was fluent in the English language and added that after more than 20 years of uninterrupted democratic practice, it should be possible for MPs who could not communicate very well in the official language to use the local language they had mastery of in debates and comments on the floor of the House.

Mr Afenyo-Markin made the comments against the background of grammatical errors made by two members of Parliament when reggae musician and radio show host, Blakk Rasta, appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Privileges last week.

Grammatical errors
The MP for Adentan, Mr Emmanuel Nii Ashie Moore, in a question to the Editor of the Searchlight newspaper, Mr Ken Kuranchie, said: " I will like to know from Mr Ken Kuranchie, in your paper, did you attributed (sic) the story to Adom FM online. Did you also spoke (sic) to Blakk Rasta?."

The member for Effigya Sekyere East, Mr Henric David Yeboah, who filed the complaints with the House, also kept referring to Blakk Rasta as "Brack Rasta."

Since then, some radio presenters have played both voices on their stations and made humorous anecdotes of the errors to provoke laughter.

Without making any reference to those incidents, Mr Afenyo-Markin noted that there had been some comments in the media in recent times and said the fact that someone was unable to communicate fluently in the English language did not mean that he or she was not intelligent.

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 in the House for its interpretation. "

Mr Afenyo-Markin said Parliament should have the facilities to interpret local languages.

Deputy Speaker's ruling
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, who presided over affairs, said the practice had been that if any member made any statement or used a word that was not in English, he or she had to translate it for all members to understand.

If any member was not in a position to translate, he said, he or she had no option but to proceed in English.

Mr Afenyo-Markin, in a reply to the Deputy Speaker’s remarks, said henceforth, he intended to make his submissions on the floor of the House in Fanti, his mother tongue.