The Appointments Committee of Parliament currently vetting the ministerial nominees has too many members, Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has said.
According to him, with each nominee needing to answer questions from virtually all members of the committee, too much time is spent during screening, slowing the process.
The committee began the vetting of ministers-designate on Friday January 20. So far only six of the 36 nominees have appeared before it.
But speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM Monday January 23, the Majority Leader said: “The membership of the Appointments Committee is too large. If a nominee is to take and answer questions from all 26 members, it will take a lot of time.
“Osafo Maafo (Senior Minister-designate), for instance, spent four hours [before the committee] and that was a lot of time. There is no time to waste because of the volume of work on the table.”
He added: “The past government prepared a budget for the first three months of 2017 for this new government, but after the three months the new government will also have to prepare its own budget for the next financial year, factoring all of its programmes. But here we are, the new government does not have ministers yet and so who is going to prepare the budget? You need now to have a new set of ministers in place who will prepare the budget and that means the vetting process will have to move faster.
“The composition of the Appointments Committee is not the best for us and we need to have a second look at it.”
Source: AccraFM.com
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this party will never stop to surprise me. 1. has the membership been increase just during this parliament. 2. has this man not been in parliament for the past 16years. 3. has the 3 months to prepare a budget not the case in the past. 4. I thought they have a lot of plans and every basis finance and accounting student will tell you, the first thing you do is to prepare a forecast with the figures you know. 5. was the government not given handing over note and was this man not in parliament when the 3 months budget was given. 6. this comments reminds me of their attitude when they took power in 2001 which was full of complain and all. which they therefore used to justify the first 60% increment in petrol prices by Osafo Marfo. I hope the young ones on this platform will read and research well into this.
Why is Osei Kyei Mensah complaining to us. What can we ordinary Ghanaians do about thier committee. Who formed the committee? they should sit down and reduce the number of the people on the committee and also tell the members to ask sensible questions. They are wasting everybody's time.
i agree with you, sir. i also think the following must be done: 1. the criteria for selecting members need to be revised so we get people who are deep in thinking to ask relevant questions 2. the format of the vetting should be revised to take away that "unnecessary" correction of errors on curriculum vitae of nominees. 3. as much as there must be leadership at the committee the leaders, so named, must respect the members of the committee (adjoa sarfo's haughty nature in mind). my musing, that is.