Parliament will not consider any bill from the Finance Ministry until the Minister appears before Parliament-Speaker

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 is 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.

Report by Prosper Kwaku Selassy Agbitor