House unable to adopt report from Assurance C'ttee

Accra, Feb. 26, GNA- Parliament on Thursday refused to adopt the second report of the Committee on Government Assurances on Assurances, Promises and Undertakings.

The Speaker, Mr. Peter Ala Adjetey ruled that, owing to the accusations and counter accusation between the two parties, the report should be set aside for reconsideration by a Special Committee.

The Speaker therefore constituted a five-member special committee comprising of the Majority Leader, who is also the chairman, Minority Leader, Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Government Assurance Committee as well as the Ranking Member and Deputy Ranking Member and Mr. Mike Gizo, NDC-Shai-Osu Doku.

The Special Committee was given 10 days to complete its deliberations and present a report to the House.

Mr. Ala Adjetey asked Mr. Bartels, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris and Mr. Yaw Barima to put responses to the report in writing and present them to the Committee through the Clerk of Parliament.

Earlier, Mr. Paul Collins Appiah-Ofori, Chairman of the Committee in presenting the report alleged that Mr. Bartels had refused to respond to the Committees invitation to appear before it and substantiate promises he had made in the past about a 10- million dollar Italian loan meant for capacity building of skilled mechanics at Odornaa, Suame and Kumasi. He said the Committee's investigations had revealed that the Loan Agreement covering the said Loan indicated that the loan was intended for purposes other than what the minister had told the Committee.

"It is considered in the view of the Committee that the Minister failed to present the truth to the Committee and for that matter Parliament."

"The Minister's refusal to attend to the Committee when he was invited in accordance with Article 103(6) of the 1992 Constitution, coupled with his failure to present the true picture of the loan facility to the Committee, is disappointing and affronts the dignity of Parliament."

Mr. Appiah-Ofori said the Committee therefore recommended that the House deplored the conduct of the Minister, sanction him, made him to apologize and be reported to the President, John Agyekum Kufuor.

In his response Mr. Bartels described the portions of the report dedicated to attacking his integrity as absurd and full of falsehoods. He said in July, 2003 he presented a letter to the Committee telling it that Ministry was accessing a 10-million dollar Italian loan facility to, among other things, provide assistance to skilled mechanics at Odorna in Accra, Suame in Kumasi and indeed all skilled auto-mechanics around the country to acquire tools and equipment to manufacture plant and machinery.

Mr. Bartels said "I never said anywhere in my letter that the loan was meant for capacity building of auto-mechanics as the potential beneficiaries were already skilled mechanics."

He said the loan was meant to be made available in October, 2003, adding that the Committee should have waited till October if the loan did not come then it could have invited him to answer why the failure to deliver on promise.

"But they did not wait - they wrote directly to the Italian Ambassador questioning him about the truth or otherwise of my promise," he said. "That move by the Committee only went to affect my integrity before the Ambassador."

"I therefore wrote to the Committee on September 15, 2003 and explained how its move had damaged my integrity, the integrity of the Government and indeed told the committee that diplomatic protocol did not allow the Italian Ambassador to respond directly to Parliament on such issues."

He noted that it was not true that the loan agreement disqualified the said auto-mechanics, saying that the Committee calculations evaded the portions of the agreement, which qualifies the auto-mechanics and decided to exclusively focus on other categories of beneficiaries for reason best known to the members of the Committee.

"I believe in presenting such falsehoods and baseless accusations against me, the Chairman of the Committee is only carrying through with his earlier threats to stretch me, but I have told him that I am un-stretchable," he said.

Alhaji Idris confirmed that he had on some occasions not attended upon the committee to answer question and he therefore apologized to the House but explained that it had been difficult for his Ministry to meet deadlines in gathering information to offer responses to the Committee.

Various members of the House who contributed to the debate of the report suggested that the report was stepped aside for reconsideration. Mr. Appiah-Ofori in his concluding statement accepted that the report be re-considered but stated that as far as he was concerned nothing will change in the report.