News:
June 28, 2013
The leadership of Parliament will meet with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House to ascertain whether the committee indeed wrote to rLG Communications Company Ltd, a local communications company, to solicit funds to embark on a journey outside the country.
The findings will be made available to the Speaker, Mr Doe Adjaho, as soon as the facts are ascertained, for appropriate action.
This was disclosed to the Daily Graphic by the Majority Chief Whip, Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak.
The meeting has become necessary as a result of publications in a section of the media indicting the PAC solicited funds from the company.
Alhaji Muntaka said currently, the leadership of the House did not have the facts because both the chairman of the committee and the ranking member were out of the country.
He also said the PAC had money in its own coffers and, therefore, it would be unusual for it to write to a private company soliciting funds to engage in parliamentary business.
At their leadership meeting yesterday, Mr Adjaho was said to have been furious about the publications, especially one with the headline Doe Adjaho’s Parliament Rotten.
But Alhaji Muntaka said the leadership managed to calm Mr Adjaho down with the explanation that they had not heard from the leadership of the PAC yet and until that was done, the veracity of the matter could not be ascertained.
He said it was agreed that the leadership of the House could make some comments on the issue without going into the details.
On the floor of the House yesterday, members managed to discuss the issue without bringing out the exact issue.
When Alhaji Muntaka broached the topic, the MP for Old Tafo, Dr Anthony Akoto-Osei, rose to his feet saying the floor of the House was not the appropriate forum to discuss the issue.
He said the committee of the whole appeared to be the best forum to discuss the issue, or the Privileges Committee.
Leadership, he said, needed to set the right example with regard to the issue.
Mr Adjaho reminded members that at the leadership meeting, it had been agreed that a few comments be made on the issue on the floor of the House.
He said he had taken a serious view of the publications, but as to whether they are true or not, I do not know.”
Mr Dominic Nitiwul, Deputy Minority Leader and Papa Owusu Ankomah, MP for Sekondi, both expressed their concerns about the issue.
Daily Graphic