Month: February 2025

The Ad-Hoc Committee set up by the Rt. Hon Speaker Alban Sumana Bagbin, to investigate what led to the chaos at the vetting of Ministers is set to present its report to the House on Thursday, February 13, 2025.

Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin had written to the Speaker expressing concern over alleged bias by the Chairman of the Committee, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah towards Minority members on the Committee; a development that led to the Minority boycotting the public hearing of the Committee.

Ghanamps.com investigation can attest that that the Committee has asked for two days extension to present its report as the ten days given them was not enough; and they needed the extra days to conclude with putting together their report.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Immediate past Chairman of the Roads and Transport Committee, Kennedy Osei-Nyarko has taken a swipe at the Ministry of Roads and Highways for issuing a statement over the weekend suspending an Act of Parliament, the National Roads Authority 2024 Act 1118 that seeks to manage Ghana’s road infrastructure by merging the Ghana Highways Authority, Department of Urban Roads and Feeder Roads.

According to him, he is more shocked and down founded that the sector Minister Governs Kwame Agbodza who took former President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government to the cleaners for abolishing road tolls and made a lot of noise today in charge of the Roads sector is doing otherwise.

In an interview, he pointed out that if the Executive arm has an issue, they know the procedure; and what to do is to come to Parliament with an amendment of the portion they feel there is an issue with.

“I have picked information that the National Labour Commission, wrote to the Ministry to suspend the implementation, “Does an independent body have such powers? NLC is a creation by an Act passed by Parliament; if they think some workers are going to be affected they have two avenues to use; is either the affected workers should petition Parliament or they go to court to seek a review”.

He further advised the sector Minister to move cautiously stating that he is starting on a bad note and should withdraw the press release and apologize to Parliament and the people of Ghana for taking a decision he does not have power to take.

Mr Kennedy Osei-Nyarko further explained that the Act was to deal with some mischief, some challenges which have bedeviled the road sector for a very long time. “If you look at the Roads and Highways Ministry, there are about three key agencies – highways authority, urban roads, and feeder roads. They cannot be doing the same work, hence the need to merge them”.

We do not have enough resources to do everything; and because of resources constraints, we want to utilize the little resources we have. When you have a sector that duplicates the role of the other agencies, it delays projects and leads to insufficient maintenance on our road network.

So in the wisdom of the past government, they thought it wise they should come under one Authority which will deal with all these and it’s a very good thing having one Authority to manage all these three agencies, he added.

According to him, the idea behind passing this law was to know work schedules, adding that there was extensive consultation; “we spent a lot of resources, time and everything to pass this Act only for the new government led by its Minister to issue a press statement that it has suspended the implementation of an Act of Parliament.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

A member of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Minority side Kwame Antwi Anyimadu said he overheard the Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon Alban Sumana Bagbin giving directives for the Committee investigating the vetting chaos not to hold public hearing.

According to him he agrees with the directives of the Speaker and what the Committee is doing currently, the Committee is not conducting serious investigations, hence the reason he participated in the workings of the Committee once and later sought guidance from the leadership of the Minority.

At a press conference, he argued that, “if you call ten witnesses; according to the committee, twenty-five members have been identified and were to be invited. If all of them are to seat together and you call them one by one to speak to the hearing of the others, you are not conducting any investigation”.

Mr Anyimadu raised concerns with the manner the investigation is being conducted, stating that “the moment we take this as a public enquiry, any person, if you ask him to leave the committee room and go to the next room, he can go to the next room and watch television and observe whatever we are doing. The process of doing it is not the right thing. I have raised it and some of the members have also raised it”.

“We were not sure especially, when the Majority Leader has to come and testify before the Committee in public, I had to get up to seek clearance from the leadership of our caucus and we have to communicate to you that this is why you are not seeing us at the public hearing after our first appearance”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Majority Chief Whip Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor when he appeared on Monday, February 10, 2025 before the Ad Hoc Committee investigating the chaos that occurred at the Appointment Committee said he is not proud of what occurred at the Appointment Committee sitting and takes full responsibility.

According to him others disagree that if punishment was supposed to be meted out it should not be him, but I agree in principle that you need to punish the leaders, he told the Committee.

He further told the Committee chairman Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah that consensus building failed for that night.

He also affirmed that if his counterpart was minded of his way of doing things that night, they would not have experienced the chaos, and insisted that ones they decided to disrupt and raise chairs, “what can I do, what could I have done?” He queried.

Mr. Dafeamekpor further indicated that there is a lot of learn from the public hearing of the Ad Hoc Committee and going forward Members of Parliament would be guided from whatever recommendations the Committee will give. “A lot of things need to be streamlined from now onwards”, he stated.

When the Chairman further enquire that if giving-in to the demand of the Minority side on the committee could have averted all these problems, he said “there is a reasonableness to everything; we are serving people, we had scheduled nominees for a week, it was no fault of theirs that the Wednesday, January 29, 2025, was truncated”, adding that the Wednesday program should not have affect those who were supposed to appear on Thursday, January 30, 2025. So if the Committee was adding on to their work, those originally slated for Thursday, needed to be attended to. “When you want to vary previous agreement, you do not go physical, rather we should engage” he told the Committee.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Minority in parliament has presented a petition to the Rt. Hon Speaker Alban Kingsford Bagbin on concerns over the Chairman of the Ad Hoc committee Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah’s task to investigate the chaos that erupted during the vetting of Ministers designate.

According to the Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin, they had earlier written to raise concerns about the Chairman being bias and were waiting the response of the Speaker who is outside the jurisdiction.

“We the Minority caucus consider it prudent to wait the Speaker’s response before taking any further steps in relation to the Committee’s work”.

The Minority has copied the Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga in same letter copied to the Speaker Rt. Hon Alban Bagbin.

He further pointed out that this should not be misconstrued as unwillingness on the part of the Minority to engage with the Committee, but rather it’s a necessary step to ensure that due process is followed, and the process remains fair, impartial and credible.

Mr Afenyo-Markin further noted that they hope the Speaker will address their concerns in a manner that will uphold the integrity of the Committee’s work and the broader interest of Parliament.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, Member of Parliament (MP) for Klottey Korle believes President John Dramani Mahama’s invitation and subsequent appointment of an Envoy to The Alliance of Sahel States is to send a strong message to the entire ECOWAS block that there is still room to get back to the discussion table to see how to mend bridges among ourselves.

She said Ghana and Burkina Faso, the two neighbours have had long standing close ties especially during the period of Jerry Rawlings and Thomas Sankara, so trying to cement that relationship is important to dealing with the insecurity situation at the northern parts of Ghana and Burkina Faso.

The Klottey Korle MP emphasized that the two countries are not just neighbours but also share family ties as hence any disturbance in any of the countries forces people to find refuge in the other, as peaceful co-existence is thus very crucial and beneficial to both countries.

President Mahama’s move, she said it even more relevant as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has itself opened its doors for the three countries to return to the bloc despite the formation of The Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

According to her to extricate oneself from an economic community such as ECOWAS or any other is not as simple as having formed a new position of saying you don’t belong; as there are a lot of things that affect the nationals of the various nation states that are part of the community that have far reaching implications beyond the political including economic, and socio-cultural implications.

“I believe that what we saw in terms of the invitations of the head of State of Burkina Faso as well as the appointment of Rt. Colonel Gbevlo Lartey as an envoy to those countries is a strong message that Ghana understands that the struggle towards self-determination, the struggle towards economic empowerment is not as linear as we like to say it is; and in so doing it is an acknowledgement that there are other ways by which one can actually reach out to our brothers and sisters in other countries to re-mend broken bridges”, she stated.

Dr Zanetor said the invitation is also probably to say that “we are not casting you away; you are still part of us and there is room to have conversation on how we come together” since the ultimate goal of having a bloc is the empowerment of our people and not personal issues either as a head of state or whatever, but for the greater good of the various nations particularly the vulnerable. More so, it is important in making sure that we are not making our countries more vulnerable, giving the fact that incidents of terrorist armed groups and violent extremism is prevalence and knocking at our doors.

“We cannot sit here as a country holding our credentials of democratic rule for as long as we have, and feel that we can live in isolation. We have borders that are porous among other things; so we need to have ways in which we can bridge the gap to decrease our risk but of course make sure that we’re trying to create some greater cohesion in the sub-region; so I believe it was positive”, she emphasized.

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com

The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has provided evidence to prove that his Airport Hill residence is never his bonafide property; rather a rented one.

Contrary to the Chairman of the Appointments Committee’s decision not to allow Mr Okudzeto to disclose details of his (Okudzeto) status at the said residence during his vetting to becoming the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the MP who said the house neither belong to him nor any of his family members on Saturday during an exclusive interview with Alfred Ocansey on TV3’s Key Point program, disclosed details of the ownership of the facility and his status as a tenant.

In the details provided by Finali Limited, the Management of the Airport Hills, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and his Wife are indeed tenants.

The confirmation was made after a request by the Mr. Ablakwa to Finali Limited to furnish the appointments Committee with relevant details including the name of the owner, size of the plot and occupancy at Plot No. 565, No. 1 Wilshire Boulevard.

Mr Ablakwa also debunked the assertion that MPs are only paid GHC15,000.00 as salary, stating that they also receive rent allowance among others.

He said he is not worried about attempts to smear his reputation as he has not done anything wrong except to say that he has accepted to chair the Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL) team.

He said he will continue to do his work to the best of his ability without any fear.

View the two letters below:

Request letter to Finali

Response by Finali

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com

Chairman of the Ad-hoc committee probing the vetting chaos, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah has cautioned the Minority Members of Parliament that the committee will invoke the constitutional provision or the standing orders of Parliament if they don’t come to testify on Monday, February 10, 2025.

The Minority MPs have boycotted the committee’s hearing, insisting that the hearing should be made in-camera and not a public one.

Speaking to journalists after the second day of hearing on Friday, the Ho West MP and Chairman of the Committee noted that he is yet to identify the reasons why the Minority MPs have failed to honour the Committee’s invite to testify despite the Speaker’s directive for investigations to proceed.

“We are waiting for them to testify. I’m not bias, we all see what we’ve done here and so I’m surprised that they say I’m bias. We’re waiting for them to testify on Monday, if they are not here on Monday, we will invoke the constitutional provision as well as the standing orders,” he said.

The Ho West MP dismissed claims by the Minority Caucus that he’s being prejudicial and bias in his work.

“I am surprised because he was here with us on the first day so I don’t know where the accusation of bias is coming from so maybe he has to identify where I was bias,” he added.

He further revealed that Atiwa East MP and a Minority member on the committee, Abena Osei-Asare was present at the Committee’s meeting on Thursday, February 6, 2025; so he’s surprised that the Minority MPs still did not appear to testify before the Committee.

He noted that the Committee will proceed with its hearing until the Speaker says otherwise.

Ghanamps.com

Parliament was forced to adjourn early on Friday 7, 2025 as the House failed to form a quorum for business.

The First Deputy Minority whip Habib Iddrisu raised the issue of quorum when the required number was obviously lacking in the chamber. Even the Majority with all their huge number failed to raise 91 out of their 187.

According to him Article 102 of the 1992 constitution says for business on the floor of the House to go on the House needs 91 MPs on the floor of the House and at the start of the Business they had only 30 members on the floor of the House hence his decision to raise the issue of quorum with the first deputy Speaker Bernard Ahiafor presiding.

Addressing the media, he noted that his call for a quorum pushed the Majority to get their members in which only pushed the number to 71 out of the 276.

“It’s clear the super Majority is not ready to do business and they have no government business to do. If they were serious with the numbers that they have, they should be able to get 91 of their members into the chamber this is a clear indication of how weak the NDC Majority is and how unserious they are”.

And if they do not have the numbers, I will continue to raise this issue; it is stated in the constitution, Article 102, you need to have 91 to commence business when it comes to decision you need to have 138, he concluded.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Minority Chief Whip Frank Anoor-Dompre has expressed worry over the absence of various Committees weeks after the 9th Parliament commenced.

According to him it has been long overdue and does not understand why the long delay as members of parliament want to know the Committees they belong to.

In response, Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga indicated that the Rt. Hon Speaker Alban Sumana Bagbin, who is the Chair of the Committee of Selection, is out of the jurisdiction and when he is back it will be worked on.

On Friday, February 7, 2025, the issue of Committees being put in place came up on the floor of the House when the Majority whip Nelson Dafeamekpor reiterated that the Speaker will be back soon for work of the Committees to be done.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com