There were scenes of grandstanding at the Appointments Committee of Parliament during its public sitting on Monday, January 20, 2025 to vet ministerial nominees of President John Dramani Mahama.
The situation resulted in the chairman, Bernard Ahiafor, reluctantly suspending the proceedings, and upon resumption, the Minority Leader accused the chairman and the majority side of being “rude” to him.
“Chairman, all your colleagues, including you, have been rude to me this morning. You have been very rude. You have been extremely rude,” the minority leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, lamented.
His outburst took close to a two-hour period when members of the Appointments Committee engaged in what could literally be described as a show of bravado between the majority and the minority sides, over aspects of the minority leader’s opening remarks.
The Honourable Members of the Appointments Committee used that period to settle the issue of what could be said by the minority or not.
While at it, the first nominee for the day, the Minister-designate for Roads and Highways, Kwame Governs Agbodza, was seated waiting for the first question to be posed to him.
The problem of the majority was that the minority leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, while exercising a conventional courtesy to give opening remarks at the commencement of the proceedings, veered off to unrelated matters.
The objection raised against the minority leader yesterday was not different from what was witnessed last week, at the vetting of the first three nominees, where he spoke about other matters in his opening remarks.
The majority last week raised concerns that he was using the Appointments Committee sitting to hold a press conference. But unyielding, the Effutu legislator managed to make his remarks, amidst the incessant interruption from the majority.
Yesterday’s sitting
During his opening remarks, the minority leader, who is the ranking member on the Appointments Committee, raised some concerns about the revocation of appointments of chief executives to state-owned institutions appointed by the previous government.
Jubilee House, sometime last week, issued a letter to revoke their appointments.
In his remarks, the minority leader stated that the matter he raised was rooted in the case of Theophilous Donkor versus the Attorney General, decided on June 12, 2019 by lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe.
He said the background to this matter was as a result of some revocation of appointments that took place in 2017, in which the court held that some Chief Executives, who were appointed by the government and, for that matter, under Articles 191 and 195 ought not to be sacked by mere operation of a change of government.
OBJECTION
The majority members on the committee raised objections to that part of the minority leader’s remarks, arguing that it was outside the remit of the Appointments Committee.
Mahama Ayariga particularly raised the point of order, drawing strength from Order 267 of the Standing Orders of Parliament.
His position was reinforced by the Deputy Majority Leader, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, who said the minority leader was out of order in his attempt to introduce matters outside their mandate.
“And so, Chairman, I’m calling on you to rule respectfully the ranking member, that he is completely out of order,” Armah Buah prayed the chairman.
REBUTTAL
While both sides were arguing their case, Mahama Ayariga and the chairman, in their quest to have the minority leader stay within his mandate, also quoted a Supreme Court ruling.
The minority leader, in his response to the objection, attempted quoting a Supreme Court ruling but was not allowed, as he was unceasingly interrupted.
His case was that if the majority members could rely on a court decision to raise an objection, why he could not do the same, arguing that by the time he was done, the chairman would have a basis to overrule the objection.
In the midst of the charged atmosphere, the chairman suspended proceedings for five minutes and returned to continue when the minority leader, his deputy, and the minority chief whip were not seated.
The ranking member shortly entered the meeting room and opened his microphone to register his displeasure. According to him, during the suspension, the chairman called for him, but he asked to be excused as he was meeting his caucus, only to return to see proceedings ongoing.
“Chairman, I want to register this protest that you have proceeded in bad faith. It is not the understanding we had. We got to a point where I was responding to a point of order. You came in rudely to say that you have ruled,” Afenyo-Markin said.
WITHDRAW
Meanwhile, the use of the word rude did not sit well with the chairman and the majority members on the committee.
The chairman called on the minority leader to withdraw the word he said was unparliamentary. He stated that he had waited for the minority after announcing the five-minute suspension, but upon exhausting the time and not seeing the minority leader, he returned to continue the proceedings because he did not want to keep the public waiting.
The minority leader said he did not mean to disrespect the chair and thus retracted what he said.
“Chairman, the rate at which I get interrupted is very unacceptable. However, if, as you sit to my right as a chair, you feel that the phrase is unacceptable, I think that it’s appropriate that the same is taken back,” he said.
The chairman subsequently directed that the word ‘rude’ be expunged from the records.
Though the matter was not resolved, the vetting started after nearly two hours of back and forth.
