Speaker Of Parliament Goes Wild Over Finance Minister Refusal To Appear Before The House

Following the failure of the Finance Minister to appear before Parliament to answer questions on how the covid funds were expended, the Speaker has directed that the House will not consider any business from that Ministry until the Minister appears.

Speaker Of Parliament Goes Wild Over Finance Minister Refusal To Appear  Before The House

Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Honorable Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has stated emphatically clear that the House will not consider any other business from the Finance Ministry until accountability on the covid funds was brought to bear. Given this, he has directed the Business Committee of Parliament to reschedule questions filed by members for the Finance Minister to respond to on how the covid funds were expended.

The Speaker's directive was necessitated by the inability of the Finance Minister to appear before the House for the third consecutive time to provide answers to questions relating to how covid funds were used. According to the Speaker, until the Minister appears before the House, no business relating to that ministry would be considered. However, the Speaker allowed for a paper seeking to contract additional loans by the ministry to be laid.

The agreement seeks the approval of the House to go ahead and contract the said loan from three entities which include a loan facility agreement between the government of Ghana and the African Export-Import Bank of an amount of $750,000,000 to finance capital and growth-related expenditure in the 2022 budget, syndicated term loan facility agreement between the government of Ghana and the joint Mandated lead arrangers and book runners (MLABs)(Rand Merchant Bank, a division of FirstRand Bank Limited (London Branch), Standard Chartered Bank and the Standard Bank for South Africa Limited for the amount of up to $250,000,000 to finance capital and growth-related expenditure in the 2022 budget.

But the Speaker said the business committee will not consider the same until he, the Finance Minister appears before the House.

Majority Leader Honourable Osei Kyei Mensah and Minority Leader, Honourable Haruna Iddrisu both could not understand why the Minister disrespected the House.

He however promised that the Minister would honor the invitation next Wednesday, June 22, 2022. The Minority Leader entreated all to accord the House with all the necessary respect.

It was the Member of Parliament for the Banda constituency, Honourable Ahmed Ibrahim alerted the Speaker on how many times the Minister has failed to appear before it. According to him, it was not acceptable for the Minister to disregard the authority of the House.

A total of 16 questions were filed by members of the House for the Finance Minister to answer.

Report by Prosper Kwaku Selassy Agbitor