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General News of Thursday, 26 January 2017

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Ministerial vetting: Alleged report a conjecture – Kate Addo

Parliament Acting Director of Public Affairs, Kate Addo play videoParliament Acting Director of Public Affairs, Kate Addo

Acting Director of Public Affairs at Parliament, Kate Addo has thrown out claims that the appointment committee report on ministers-designate has been released.

The Appointment Committee begun its sitting on Friday 23rd January 2017 with the vetting of Senior Minister Nominee Yaw Osafo Maafo.

So far 13 ministers-designate out of the initial thirty-six (36) nominated by the President for key ministries have appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament to be vetted.

Earlier this week, there were reports of some results from the Appointments Committee indicating that the committee has recommended for approval eight (8) out of the thirteen (13) ministerial nominees vetted so far.

It’s also alleged that Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo, Energy Minister designate Boakye Agyarko and three others were amongst those whose appointment was not part of the list recommended for approval.

The remaining eight (8) according to the alleged report have been approved by the Appointments Committee but was silent on why the approval of the five has been withheld by the Committee.

Speaking to GhanaWeb, Kate Addo was emphatic in her response to the alleged report and described it as false.

According to her for such a report to be valid and represent the work of the Committee, it needs to be laid before Parliament and approved by the House.
She explained that until that is done, any purported report of the Committee is just mere conjecture.

“There’s a way that parliament does its work, when a committee is charged to do anything, when the Committee finishes its work, it presents a report to the main house. When the report is laid in the house it’s discussed and adopted or not. If a committee has done its work and it hasn’t gone through the process any reports on that is just a mere conjecture”

“Once the report is not before parliament, if anybody has it will not be an official report of parliament so it will not represent the work f parliament it may be true it may not be but it will not represent the work of parliament”

Kate Addo, clarified that the Committee’s decision not to sit today was arrived at after careful considerations of other factors that had come up.

She cited the organization of an orientation excise for fresh entrants into the house as one of the factors considered.

She made it known that Parliament has also constituted its team to represent Ghana at the ECOWAS and PAN-Africa Parliaments.

Kate Addo made certain that the report of the Committee when approved would be made available for all to have access to and details be made public.