Alban Bagbin, the speaker of the Ghanaian parliament, has suspended four lawmakers following a massive brawl over the vetting of ministerial nominees.

The chaos began on Thursday evening when the ministerial vetting committee members fought and destroyed parliament furniture during the screening exercise.

The vetting committee, comprised of members from across parties, was to screen lawmakers from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who were nominated to become ministers.

In December, NDC’s John Mahama defeated Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to become the country’s president. The victory ended the two-term reign of NPP at the helm of Ghanaian affairs.

During the screening, committee members from NDC accused their NPP colleagues of deliberately stalling the process with lengthy questions.

They accused Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the NPP’s leader in parliament, of excessively questioning the nominees for a political score.

According to the lawmakers, Samuel Nartey George, nominated for communications minister, was questioned for more than five hours.

The process eventually ended in chaos. Tables were upturned, microphones were destroyed, and committee members fought.

On Friday, Bagbin described the brawl as a “gross affront to the dignity of Parliament but also a blatant contempt of the House”.

He also announced a two-week suspension of four lawmakers for “contemptus Parlamenti in facie parlamenti”.

The suspended lawmakers are Rockson Nelson Etse Kwame Dafeamakpor, Frank Annor-Dompreh, Alhassan Sulemana Tampuuli and Jerry Ahmed Shaib.

Bagbin also revealed that a seven-member special committee will investigate the incident and submit its report with findings and recommendations within 10 days.

The speaker added that repair and replacement of damaged properties from the parliament would be surcharged from the allowances of the lawmakers found culpable.

The incident was the third time in the last four years that Ghanaian lawmakers had exchanged punches during a legislative process.

In 2021, members of parliament fought while electing a new speaker. Later that year, lawmakers disrupted the parliament during a vote on the electronic transaction levy bill.