MINORITY NDC MPS UNHAPPY WITH SPEAKER OF PARLIAMENT-PK SARPONG
Minority MPs are up in arms about the ruling of the Speaker to the effect that the report on the ministerial nominees should be debated today and voted on.
The Minority is of the view that copies of the report were not made available to Members earlier and for that matter, they are unable to make any informed debates about same given the short notice.
They have asked for the debate to be moved to tomorrow while the Speaker insists they have a few minutes to read the report.
In his view, the report contains the very issues all the Appointment Committee members which included Minority MPs contributed to during the vetting process. He has, therefore, given them 15 minutes to go through the report after which the motion would be moved.
I find it strange that these same NDC MPs are expecting to get adequate time to read the report when even before the vetting was done, the Minority, thanks to Asiedu Nketiah and John Mahama, emphatically stated that irrespective of the outcomes of the vetting, they would reject the nominees.
In fact, a letter from the General Secretary of the NDC instructed the NDC MPs never to approve these ministerial nominees. They held a presser affirming the party’s position.
The question is, so why do they need to read the report in its entirety assuming they have never sighted it before they take a decision on the nominees when they have made up their minds to reject the nominees?
Unless they are now telling us that they have jettisoned the position of the party and for that matter, they are going to vote based upon their own views, then their request was moot.
It is senseless, for want of a better expression, for the NDC MPs to make a stronger case to be given ample time to peruse the report when their reading of same would, in no way, affect their stance, a stance they adopted long before the nominees appeared before the committee to be vetted. Speaker Bagbin did well rejecting their request to shift the debate to tomorrow.
P.K. Sarpong, Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place.
