MP to drag Ayorkor Botchway to Parliament for cutting flag
The legislator for Kumbungu has taken issues with the Foreign Affairs Minister’s act of watching on while the Ghana flag was cut into peices during her recent visit to China.
Ras Mubarak stated that what Shirley Ayorkor Botchway and her Chinese host did was a “mutilation of the National Flag” and is in violation of Section 184 of Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act 29 (1960) and the Flag And Arms Protection Act of 1959.
Section 184 of Act 29 reads in part “…whoever does any act or utters any words or publishes any writing with intent to insult or bring into contempt or ridicule the official national flag or emblem of Ghana or any representation or pictorial reproduction thereof is guilty of misdemeanour.”
His Facebook post follows a viral video, in which the minister is seen with other officials of her Ministry and Chinese officials, cutting the Ghana flag to officially open Ghana’s new consul in Guangzhou.
The former CEO for the National Youth Authority (NYA) said, “in many jurisdictions, the minister would have been in serious trouble for mutating or desecrating our national flag in public”.
He argued that in the US for instance, “whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or trampled upon any flag of the United States shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than a year or both.”
The Kumbungu MP said considering that “the Attorney General may not be interested in prosecuting her colleague minister” he intends to bring a half-hour motion in parliament with the view to having the Minister answer for her actions.”
He wants Section 184 of Act 29, to be amended in the future so a phrase like “with intent to” will be replaced with the word “knowingly.”
Ras Mubarak concludes his post by stressing “Ghana’s Chief Diplomat should never be seen cutting into our flag.”
Below is his post: