Some Members of Parliament (MPs) yesterday faulted President John Mahama for failing to inform the House about new ministerial appointments instead of choosing to make them public in the media.
They described the conduct of the President as unacceptable and a mark of bad governance.
The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, shared similar views and described the criticisms as legitimate.
He was of the view that the President was under an obligation to inform Parliament about his new ministerial appointments.
The issue was brought to the fore by the MP for Sekondi, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, who questioned the actions of the President.
Background
The President has, in the past two weeks, announced ministerial reshuffles.
By law, he is supposed to inform Parliament about such appointments, even if he decides to concurrently put the appointments in the media.
However, he has failed to inform Parliament about the new nominations and, according to the MPs, they got to know of the new appointments in the media.
Owusu-Ankomah’s views
Papa Owusu-Ankomah described the conduct of the President as unacceptable.
“When he fails to put Parliament in the know, then the inference is that he doesn’t consider the role of Parliament in respect of appointments to be urgent. So Parliament should never be stampeded into approving or considering the President’s nominations.
“It is not a mark of good governance for this practice to continue. After all, if the President has considered it worthy to nominate people in the media, contemporaneously he could just write to the Speaker,” he said.
The Sekondi MP said the management of the President’s office was “problematic”.
Mr Adjaho agrees
The Speaker agreed with the sentiments expressed by Papa Owusu-Ankomah.
“The sentiments expressed on the floor of this House on this matter are very legitimate and I share the sentiments expressed by the member,” the Speaker said, adding that “policies, as much as possible, must be announced on the floor of this House”.
“We must know which ministers we are dealing with at any particular time,” he added.
The Majority Leader, Dr Benjamin Bewa-Nyog Kunbuor, in a reaction, sought to calm members and promised to draw the President’s attention to the anomaly.
Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana