Spio-Garbrah in 6-hour vetting

The Minister-designate for Trade and Industry, Mr Ekwow Spio -Garbrah, Wednesday told the Appointments Committee of Parliament that he would conduct broad consultations on policies that he would seek to implement and not approach his duties as a man with a magic wand or as a messiah.

In obvious reference to comments made in the media about his "capabilities" and calls on him to "transform" the sector,  he said there were many good policies which were being implemented in the sector and others which, although had been crafted, were yet to be enforced.

What he would seek to do, he said, would be to speed up implementation of those already in the "pipeline" and hold discussions with stakeholders on the way forward with regard to the other policies.

Mr Spio -Garbrah’s appearance before the committee drew a large crowd of supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress ( NDC ) from the Central Region and other curious observers, including members of Parliament, who were not members of the committee, to the venue.

The vetting which took more than six hours is arguably the longest time a nominee had been " grilled" by the committee in the Fourth Republic .

Clarifications sought by members on issues contained in his curriculum vitae alone lasted more than an hour.

Mr Spio-Garbrah said he would focus on  mobilising private equity and capital from the international community and channel them into industrial projects in Ghana, adding that the nation didn’t need to always seek handouts from the developed world in its efforts to develop.

He said the nation needed to work towards raising about $10 billion annually to assist in its industrialisation drive, adding that he would work towards the attainment of that goal.

The team B issue

Prior to his appearance,  it was clear that issues bordering on an article he wrote in the Daily Graphic in 2009 in which he chastised  President John Atta Mills’s government for appointing ministers he described as  belonging to "team B" would come up.

And during the perusal of his CV by members of the committee, the issue was brought to the fore. But Mr Spio -Garbrah denied making that statement.

He explained that in the article,  he only sought to echo views expressed by a cross section of Ghanaians on radio that the government had appointed ministers deemed to be less experienced and less capable than the many NDC members who were available and who were ready to assist in steering the affairs of the nation .

He said he had never referred to any member of the government as belonging to team A or team B, adding that he was drawing the attention of his colleagues in the NDC to what people were saying.

" I never said I believed it," he added.

But some members of the committee challenged the statement and suggested that he did actually believe in what he had written and that he was angered by the failure of the late President Mills to appoint him as minister.

Mr Spio-Garbrah said at the time he wrote the article, he was the Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Authority and his wages were far bigger than he would have received as minister of state in Ghana.

He could, therefore,not have written the article as a result of "sour grapes" as was being suggested.

He said upon sober reflection and realising that the article had generated negative reactions, he apologised to the government and the NDC.

He acknowledged the fact that he failed to "communicate well" in that article and should not have used a medium as powerful as the Daily Graphic to put across those views and apologised for it.

Other matters

Mr Spio -Garbrah also said he would seek to have the bill on intellectual property rights passed into law by Parliament and work towards its implementation to protect the rights of textile companies whose designs were being pirated by their foreign counterparts.

He added that after the passage of the law, he would collaborate with the police and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority to have it enforced.

To further ensure that the practice was brought to an end, he said, the ministry would liaise with Ghanaian embassies in countries where the textiles were being produced with the pirated designs to bring to a closure those "pirating companies."

Asked why he thought the cedi was depreciating fast and how he thought the problem could be addressed,  he said the stabilisation of the local currency was not the duty of the Bank of Ghana alone.

According to him, every Ghanaian had to  contribute towards the stabilisation of the currency by patronising locally made goods.

He challenged Parliament to procure locally made furniture for the Job 600 Complex and the State Protocol Department to serve food prepared with local foodstuffs.

That, he said, would be their contribution towards the stabilisation of the currency.

He said the government needed to ensure that the entire public sector procured goods made only with local materials and only encourage the importation of machinery, which could be used to add value to local products.

Asked what he would do to ensure that foreigners did not take over the retail trade, Mr Spio - Garbrah said he would ensure the enforcement of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre ( GIPC) law which barred foreigners from engaging in the retail trade.

He added that he would also ensure that the issue was discussed by ECOWAS and enforced in the sub-region, among many other things.

He also emphasised the need to improve the quality of Ghanaian products for the international market.