Members of Parliament (MPs) belonging to the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Wednesday walked out of parliament in protest against the approval of 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.
The Deputy Minority Leader, James Klutse Avedzi, indicated that the vetting 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 and Dentralisation, Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah; and the Deputy Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Amidu Issahaku Chinnia were carried out without their involvement.
Later, the MP for Tamale North, Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini, explained his side could not take part in the vetting because the Speaker had directed MPs to take part in the Green Ghana exercise on June 11, 2021, the day the vetting took place.
According to him, Committees of Parliament work at the pleasure of the Speaker and that for Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin to have directed MPs to go to their constituencies to take part in the exercise was enough to 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 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.
MP for Abuakwa South, Samuel Atta Akyea said “every serious-minded member of the Committee would be bound by the programme.”
He continued that “and what we were going to do will take precedence over any other thing, that is very, very fundamental,” and 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