PARLIAMENT RETURNS Tuesday to consider the reports of the Appointments Committee on President Akufo-Addo’s deputy ministerial nominees and the Committee of the Whole on the proposed formula for the distribution of the District Assemblies’ Common Fund for this year.
The week provides a number of parliamentary occasions in which Ministers responsible for Finance, Energy, Works and Housing, Communications and Digitalisation, and Food and Agriculture, expect to answer several questions from MPs from the Minority side, perhaps with added documentation.
With big decisions looming on whether to factor in the level of poverty in this year’s District Assemblies’ Common Fund formula, the issue will culminate into a debate on this year’s funds allocation to the assemblies without the involvement of the media.
But the pressing issues of politics will resurface on Wednesday when the adoption of the fifth report of the Appointments Committee on the President’s nominations for deputy ministerial appointments is taken through motion.
Opponents of the government are expected to be on the move during the inevitable deputy ministerial approval, especially when the Minority members on the Appointments Committee, led by Haruna Iddrisu boycotted last Friday’s vetting.
The NDC MPs said they did not recognise the Techiman South MP, Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah, who has been nominated as the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development on grounds that his election was characterised by violence during the 2020 polls.
“We have a strong view that through the use and the misuse of the state security apparatus and the security agencies, he procured the seat through violence,” Mr. Iddrisu stated.
This brings the prospect of considerable dissent likely to be experienced when the report on his vetting is finally laid and put to motion for adoption. So far, 32 out of the 40 nominees have gone through the vetting process.
The remaining eight nominees expected to go through the process include Deputy Minister-designate for Foreign Affairs, Thomas Mbamba; Deputy Minister-designate for Works and Housing, Abdulai Abanga; Deputy Minister-designate for Health, Mahama Asei Seini; and Deputy Minister-designate for Food and Agriculture, Mohammed Hardi Tuferu.
The rest are Deputy Minister-designate for Office of Attorney General and Justice, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah; Deputy Minister-designate for Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa; Deputy Minister-designate for Information, Fatimatu Abubakar; and Deputy Minister-designate for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mark Okraku Mantey.
There will also be statements, probably from Ministers of State, and plenty of intense questioning from increasingly restive skeptics of the government about its agreement to purchase Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines from S. L. Global Limited.
Given the increasingly forceful tone of the NDC MPs in this Eighth Parliament, it seems clear they will push the government to submit the deal to Parliament for approval first, after leaving a toxic allegation of lack of transparency to reverberate back and forth in the media.
Some other activities for the week will be the pushing through of the Cooperation Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Ghana (acting through the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation) and the Swiss Confederation (acting through the Federal Department for the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications) towards the implementation of the Article Six of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Budget Performance Report in Respect of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development for the January to December, 2020 as well as the report of the Committee of the Whole on the proposed formula for the distribution of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for the year 2021 will also be considered.
Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliamentary Correspondent