OPPOSITION NATIONAL Democratic Congress (NDC) Members of Parliament (MPs) on Wednesday walked out of the House in protest of the approval of some four deputy ministers.
The Minority MPs said their boycott of the approval of the last batch of deputy ministers, which was tabled in the House by Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, was borne out of insincerity and disrespect for them by their majority counterparts.
Deputy Minority Leader, James Avedzi, indicated that the vetting of the Deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Diana Asonaba Dapaah; Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Lariba Zuweira Abdul; Deputy Minister of Local Government, Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah; and the Deputy Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Amidu Issahaku Chinnia, were carried out without their involvement.
Later, the NDC MP for Tamale North, Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini, said the Minority could not take part in the vetting because the Speaker had directed that MPs should take part in the Green Ghana exercise on June 11, 2021, the day on which the vetting took place.
According to him, committees of Parliament worked at the pleasure of the Speaker and therefore, the directive by Mr. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin to all MPs to go to their constituencies and take part in the exercise, should have signaled the chairman of the Appointments Committee to call off the vetting.
“On the said date, the Speaker gave no exclusion, he directed all Members of Parliament to go back to their constituencies to support the government programme of Green Ghana,” he posited.
However, the Majority side insisted that its members did no wrong, intimating that Parliament’s Appointments Committee had a programme of schedule which predated the event of Green Ghana on June 11.
NPP MP for Abuakwa South, Samuel Atta-Kyea, said “Every serious-minded member of the committee would be bound by the programme.”
He continued, “And what we were going to do will take precedence over any other thing that is very, very fundamental.”
He added that, “We should bear in mind that a Member of Parliament could also delegate to the chairman of the constituency to stand in for him or her.”
BY Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House