Speaker refers nominees to Appointments Committee

Page 12, fri Jan 27, 2012
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE Speaker of Parliament, Mrs Joyce Bamford-Addo, has referred nine ministers and deputy ministers designate to the Appointments Committee of Parliament for consideration and report after reading a communication from the President about their nominations to the House.
They are Mr Moses Asaga, Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Lee Ocran, Minister of Education, Mr Fritz Baffuor, Ministry of Information, Mr Dominic Azumah, Presidency, Mr William Kwasi Abuah, Ministry of the Interior and Alhaji Amin Amidu Suleman, Upper West Region.
The deputy ministerial nominees are Mr Stephen M.E.K Ackah, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Isaac Vandepuye, Greater Accra Region and Mr Henry Ametepe, Volta Region.
The mentioning of the names of the nominees by the Speaker was met with “hear, hear” from the Majority side while the Minority MPs shouted “injury time ministers”.
Meanwhile, the issue as to whether the President should communicate to Parliament when he reshuffles his cabinet or give any minister additional responsibility as an acting minister in another ministry arose in Parliament today.
Currently the practice is that it is only when the President nominated a new minister that he communicated to Parliament through the Speaker.
However, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Old Tafo and Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, raised the matter today when the official report for business of the House on January 24, 2012 was presented to the House.
In the report, the Dr Benjamin Kunbuor was referred to as the acting Attorney-General and Minister of Justice but the MP said it was not proper that the House should take issues reported in newspapers and radio stations as the gospel truth.
The issues generated a prolonged debate with a lot of MPs supporting the line of argument of Dr Akoto Osei but the Majority Leader, Mr Cletus Apul Avoka, said even though the issue raised might be proper as far as good governance was concerned, the current practice had being in place since the country returned to constitutional rule.
He explained that in practice, the various Presidents during the Fourth Republic had directed ministers to act for their colleague ministers without notifying Parliament about his directive.
“Madam Speaker may be for the sake of governance and best practices. The House should be officially informed when a minister has been swapped, reshuffled or directed to act for their colleague ministers”.
In another development, the House resolved and waived the tax liability on equipment and materials to be imported or purchased locally, corporate as well as expatriate income taxes in respect of Mampong Water Supply Rehabilitation and Expansion Project in the Ashanti Region.
The corporate and the expatriate income taxes to be waived added up to US$4,666,833.00 and GHC1,368,139.98 respectively.