Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South, Samuel Atta Akyea, has said the Minority in Parliament have no case in their decision to stage a walkout during the debate on whether or not to approve the four deputy ministerial nominees who were vetted when the opposition lawmakers weren’t available on the committee.
The former Minister of Works and Housing told journalists in Parliament on Wednesday June 23 that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) legislators chose not to be available in order to attend to other engagements hence cannot fault anyone for their own decision.
The Minority are asking the Speaker of Parliament to order the Appointments Committee to conduct the vetting of the four nominees again because they were not around for the previous screening.
Member of Parliament for Tamale North Alhassan Suhuyini explained that the NDC legislators had complied with an order by the Speaker to join the Green Ghana Planting Project on Friday, June 11.
They travelled to the various constituencies across the country to take part in the project and therefore didn’t expect the committee to sit during that period to vet the nominees, he said.
To that end, he added, the vetting of the four persons amounted to disrespect to the Speaker.
The four deputy ministerial nominees are Techiman South MP Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, for Local Government and Rural Development, Lariba Zuweira Abudu, for Gender, Children and Special Protection, Amidu Issahaku Chinnia, for Sanitation and Water Resources, and Diana Asonaba Dapaah, for the Justice.
“This is disrespect not just to us, disrespect to even the Speaker of Parliament and we hope that the Speaker will request the Committee to re-vet these nominees if possible,” Suhuyini said.
But Atta Akyea replied him saying “That decision was their own election and so we shouldn’t applaud them for it.
“When they returned and the committee had proceeded in vetting the nominees…the Minority could have also taken the decision that ‘let us see that the decision taken by the rest of the members of the committee will pass the test of what they have been vetted for’.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana