MPs Not Happy With Ministers Failing to Attend House Invitations

Members of Parliament were angered that Cabinet Ministers and their deputies were stalling and undermining the work of Parliament by failing to honour invitations to the House to answer questions.

The lawmakers claimed that Parliamentary questions are tools they use to seek information or to press for action, hence Ministers are therefore obliged to explain and defend the work, policy decisions and actions of their Ministries through these questions.

They emphasized that there is only one Parliament in Ghana which is located in Accra, but not Kumasi, stressing that the democratic path the country has chosen should not be allowed to be undermined.

The frustrated Members of Parliament were of the view that the Minister has no justification abandoning parliamentary business today, Wednesday 3rd November for a meeting in Kumasi warning that the right of oversight over the Executive should always stands.

The anger was in connection with the inability of the Minister for Transport Kweku Ofori Asiamah to honour the invitation of the House to answer an Urgent Question which stood in the name of Pru East MP (Dr) Kwabena Donkor asking to know when new and reliable ferries would be supplied to Kete Krachi, Yeji, Dambai and Donkorkrom.

The MP for Keta, Kwame Gakpe also scheduled to ask the Minister the status of the work on the Keta Sea Port and the Keta Landing Beach while his Ekumfi colleague, Abeiku Crentsil was listed to ask the Minister the commencement date of the Ekumfi Landing Beach project.

The final question for the Transport Minister about the status of the construction of the Air Navigation Services Centre at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) stood in the name of the Member of Parliament for Sissala West Adam Mohammed Supkaru.

Deputy Minority Chief Whip Ahmed Ibrahim leading the outburst expressed his anger at the blatant disregard of the authority of the House by some Ministers and insisted that Parliament needed to bite hard to show that it had oversight responsibility over the Executive.

He said the attitude of the Minister was an affront to the authority of Parliament, a conduct intended to stall the conduct of business in the House especially as this Meeting, in which is programmed, the presentation of the 2022 Budget Statement and Government Financial Policy is scheduled to last for only nine-weeks.

Members in their contributions believed it was unfortunate that some Ministers who had been invited to answer questions were undermining the authority of the House and lamented that it is even more worrying when it is Ministers who are also MPs who are behaving like this.

The lawmakers in frustration were unanimous in agreeing it was because of this attitude of some Minsters of State towards Parliament that Ghanaians often ridiculed the House and suggested that it was time Parliament exerted its authority and stopped pampering Ministers.

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