The Fourth Republic’s Parliament has been consistently moving on the path of power play by the Majority, where it is said that,“the Minority will have their say and the Majority will have their way!”
The NDC used this most, and in the Second Parliament, with 65.5% or131 seats in the 200-seat House, they effectively bullied the Minority parties.
It is significant to recall an event in November 1999, when the Minority NPP move a motion of censure against the then Finance minister, Hon. Richard Peprah.
It was at the time when the minister supervised the steady depreciation of the cedi, from ¢ 1,050.00 to $1.00 at the beginning of 1995 to ¢ 3,550.00 by the end of 1999. Ghana’s economy was so bad and the nation was cash strapped that we had to borrow to pay interest on loans. Ghana, by all standards had over qualified to access the HIPC Debt Relief Initiative.
The Opposition, with a censure motion, thought Peprah must go, but the then Speaker, Rt. Hon. Justice D. F. Annan and the Majority NDC in Parliament made sure the censure did not see the light of day. And so, Hon Peprah continued to remain in office even though he was messing up.
It is worth noting that at that time, there was noexternal problems like, like global economic meltdowns, wars or pandemics that effectively put a check on our economy.
That was not the case in 2020 to 2022, during Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta’s tenure as finance minister.Ghana’s economy saw a steady rise when he took over in 2017 and even though the Covid-19, global pandemic smashed down many world economies, including Ghana’s, our economy stood up to the storm. In 2020 and 2021, inflation was still single digit. Then the Russia-Ukraine war broke, and everything everywhere came tumbling down.
Europe was hardest hit with inflation. In UK, inflation at the start of January 2022, was 5.4%, in October 2022, it shot up by 174% to 14.8%. In Ghana, inflation rate at the beginning of January 2022 was 13.9%, but in October 2022, it shot up by 191% to 40.4%. Life was terrible everywhere and, in some countries, people rose up against their finance ministers.
In Ghana, Ken Ofori-Atta was blamed for the financial problems and among his own, the decision was, he must vacate his position. One fine afternoon, eighty NPP MPs in Parliament assembled at a press conference anddemanded the minister’s removal. The fact that they came out in such a bold manner was unprecedented in the history of the Fourth Republic. Unlike the NDC MPs of the Sixth Parliament, who made noise in the dark to demand the remove of finance minister Seth Terkper, the NPP MPs of the Eight Parliament came out boldly and showed their faces in broad daylight to make their demand, while speaking directly to the President, H.E. Nana Akufo Addo.
Then the NDC woke up from slumber with an idea. They wanted to seize that opportunity of the removal of the finance minister and make it their own. So, even before the brave and courageous NPP MPs could retire to their offices in the State House, their NDC counterparts, quickly organised a press conference and came out with the same idea but on a different approach. They first listed some wrongs of the minister and decided to pass a censure motion on him which will lead to his removal. They then begged the NPP MPs to join them to pass that motion.
The NPP MPs were invited by the leadership of the party, to further explain their problem. At the end of it all, the president accepted that his finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta must go and he gave a dateline.
It was obviously, that either the NDC MPs did not understand what the president said or they wanted things to go according to their own terms.
Instead of backing the president’s programme, they pushed the censure motion through in Parliament.
The result was anInquisition of Hon Ken Ofori-Atta by MPs, which was life on television and radio. It became obvious that the NDC MPs had nothing to hang Ken Ofori-Atta with, as he excelled in the Q & A.
The NDC MPs would still not accept defeat and came to the House for secret voting for the rejection of the minister. In the House that day, the NPP MPs walked out. This time, unlike 1999, the NDC MPs did not have the numbers to have their way. A censure motion had again fallen flat in Parliament.
The question is, on what grounds were the NDC MPs standing, to remove the finance minister? If it is from that Inquisition, Ghanaians cannot see any justification because the NDC MPs flopped, big time.
As things stand now, the Opposition NDC MPs have rather succeeded in endorsing Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta, because they failed to expose him at the Inquisition and they failed to pass a censure motion against him.
If only they had kept quiet and allowed the president’s programme on Ken Ofori-Atta to mature, the finance minister would have exited office without any noise.
The NDC MPs only wanted things their way, but unfortunately, they have ended up endorsing the finance minister.
Now, everything lies with the president, who would remove Ken Ofori-Atta on his own terms.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
