Former Majority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has said the vetting of the first three ministerial nominations made by President Mahama shouldn’t have taken place.
He says the exercise did not follow due process as enshrined in the Standing Orders of Parliament.
According to the second longest serving Member of Parliament in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, the Speaker is supposed to chair a Committee on Selection to appoint the standing and sitting committees of the House before they could proceed on anything.
However, an Appointments Committee was formed to carry on with the vetting of the ministerial nominees whilst the body supposed to form that committee as contained in the Standing Orders of the House has not been constituted.
Order 205 of the Standing Orders of Parliaments states that: The Committee of Selection shall comprise the Speaker as the Chairperson and not more than 14 Members of Parliament. The Committee on Selection shall prepare a report to the House within the first 10 sitting days after appointment, the list of members to compose the standing and sitting committees of the House.
In an exclusive interview with TV3’s Eric Mawuena Egbeta, the former Member of Parliament for Suame in the Ashanti region noted that the Speaker is aware that the Committees have not been formed and going ahead to vet nominees without going through due process is against the acceptable practice.
“The Committees have not been set up and the Speaker of Parliament is the Chairman of the Committee on Selection which is supposed to set up these committee and the Speaker knows that the committee has not been set up,” Kyei-Mensah Bonsu said.
In his view, the Speaker shouldn’t have adjourned the House to January 21, knowing the committees have not been set up.
“I felt that what ought to have been done, acknowledging that the committees have not been done yet, would have been, once the names came, the clerks to the committees be known and the clerks would then do the advertisement on behalf of the emerging committees” for the processes to continue.
The former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs noted further that the Speaker should have constituted the committee on selection to begin its work before adjourning the House, so that members would have stayed back to perform their crucial duties whilst others were away.
“I felt what ought to have been done immediately would have been for the Committee of Selection to have been composed so that if they have to go away for about one week or so, the Committee , [would have stayed to perform those important assignments].
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