External pressure on Minority contributed to chaos in Parliament - Ahiafor alleges

The First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Bernard Ahiafor, has said that external pressure on leaders of the Minority side could be the reason for the chaos that was witnessed during vetting by the Appointments Committee last week.

Mr Ahiafor, who chairs the Appointments Committee, explained to the Ad hoc Committee established to probe the disturbances that led to damage to state property, that an agreement was reached between the Majority and Minority sides during a pre-sitting meeting to vet six nominees, including the Minister of Health designate, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, on the same day.

This, he claimed, however changed when the Minority side later confided in him that there was pressure on them from external quarters not to proceed with the vetting of the Health Minister designate, having earlier agreed to vet him as the sixth nominee a day before.

“I must say that sometimes I see frustration on the part of the Minority. Because there was an external pressure on them and that has resulted in them doing certain things that ordinarily should not happen,” Mr Ahiafor said.

Testimony

Testifying before the committee last Wednesday, the chairman, who is also the MP for Akatsi South, said that the lack of agreement to continue with vetting after interrogating one Oliver Barker-Vormawor on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, for accusing the committee of corruption, created a backlog of nominees to be vetted, which required consensus to complete the process by merging nominees slated for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

“I received a call from Honourable Minority Leader that we can add Mr Akandoh on that day, therefore, six people were programmed to be taken.

“Then there was an agreement that the backlog, being the two, should be added to the following day, which was Friday,” he added.

The lawmaker alluded that the Minority side, however, took a disruptive posture as demonstrated by the Minority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, who started banging the table in protest against the vetting of nominees on Wednesday. 

Delays and intrusion

The chairman also accused the Minority of delaying the proceedings on Thursday, January 30, with the excuse that the caucus had a meeting at 9:00 a.m., the time that had been scheduled earlier for the sitting.

He said that although the proceedings time was changed to 10 a.m., he discovered through an encounter with some members of the Minority that they had no caucus meeting.

“If you have a challenge of a caucus meeting, I would agree with you. But a situation where you do not have a caucus meeting, but you deceive me in order to delay the proceedings of that day to say that you have a caucus meeting, I won't take it kindly,” Mr Ahiafor said.

He claimed that while negotiations were ongoing before the chaos, the Minority Leader requested that some people be called into the vetting room, which led to some non-members of the committee entering the room.

Mr Ahiafor, therefore, said that there could have been intruders and non-parliamentarians participating in the chaos due to the Minority’s call on some persons to enter the vetting room. 

Suspension of sitting

The ad hoc committee, however, suspended sitting following a directive from the Clerk-to-Parliament, until further notice as some witnesses expected from the Minority, acting on the instructions of their leader, recused themselves from the meeting.

The suspension of the meeting occurred at a time the Clerk to the Appointments Committee, Mrs Gifty Jiagge-Gobah, was testifying about what she witnessed and her role at the committee on that day.

The Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Emmanuel Kwesi Bedzrah, in his notice prior to the suspension of the meeting, said: “It is not the committee that has decided to stop, but the Clerk to Parliament of Ghana has requested that until he gets further instructions from the Speaker, the committee should suspend the sitting”.

The chairman, who is also the MP for the Ho West Constituency, further explained that the Vice- Chairman of the Committee, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, who started the sitting with them, sought permission to recuse himself following a directive from the Minority Leader.

“The Vice-Chair was with us and he even asked questions. Along the line, he requested that he wanted to meet with his leader. When he came back, he said his leader asked him to recuse himself and not be part of the meeting again.

“One of the witnesses from the other side who was to appear also said his leader had asked him not to come.

“The Clerk was going to withdraw his staff to the committee, that is why we had to suspend the sitting to get a clearer understanding of what was happening,” he said.