According to him, the Majority side deliberately acted in a way to prevent the minority from capturing their views in the official report.

Speaking on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, Muntaka accused the majority of being “emotional” and trying to cover-up wrongdoing although there is evidence that point to wrongdoing.

Reacting to fallouts from the consideration of the ad-hoc committee’s report on the matter on the floor of parliament on Tuesday, he said, “they [majority] are always acting with emotions… Even if you want to cover up, cover up neatly. On what basis will you refer a committee’s report to the privileges committee?”

“They have started from day 1 with the mindset that they were not interested in what was going to happen. You can see clearly in the way they were asking the question when we appeared before them… When they did all these, you just have these tons of pages of witnesses’ verbatim extracts, you go into a committee and you don’t allow the clerk of the committee who has brought you summaries of the hearing through which you are supposed to do the draft report.. the chairman of the committee vanishes and appears with a draft report to present…. That is why I think the majority was very dishonest in their dealings,” he added.

Despite a walk-out by the minority over the debate of the report on Tuesday, the House considered the report and cleared the Ministry of Trade and the event organizers of wrongdoing.

The Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye, however referred the report to the privileges committee.

It is unclear the reason for the referral, but some believe it is due to other developments such as alleged peddling of falsehood under oath by Muntaka during his testimony before the committee.

Meanwhile, Yaw Boabeng Asamoah, the spokesperson for the committee and Member of Parliament for Adenta, has said that the majority members on the ad-hoc committee is unfazed by the minority’s claims that its views were deliberately taken out of the report.

“He [Muntaka] has all the public space to continue spewing all the things they said before which they never substantiated.”

He added that his side is confident in the report it produced following the sitting.

“I am totally committed to that report and I believe Parliament must stand for something. And parliament should not shoot itself in the foot. I believe that a serious member of parliament should act responsibly when acting in the public space; making allegations of extortions and bribery. I am very proud of what we delivered and I believe the house is satisfied.”

Minority caused financial loss – Alan

The Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, has suggested that members of the Minority who championed the recall of Parliament culminating in the setting up of a bi-partisan Committee to probe the cash-for-seat allegations have caused financial loss to the state.

He said the emergency recall of the house to discuss the matter was unnecessary as their claims were determined to be unsubstantiated following the ad-hoc committee’s work.

“It may be possible that the associated cost for recalling this may be a case of causing financial loss,” Kyerematen said on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Cash-for-seat: Majority being ‘very dishonest’ – Muntaka appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, who asked Mr. Kyeremanten to clear the air on the matter, has concluded that there was no wrongdoing, after he received a report from the Minister.

[contextly_sidebar id=”7EMojn3TlMZwzCBd2xRSGEYQaFdpjR7k”]The Ministry was alleged to have charged between $25,000 and $100,000, to enable expatriates to sit close to the President at the awards ceremony, which was organised by the Millennium Excellence Foundation.

In line with accountability, Mr. Kyeremanten, in a statement disclosed that, “an amount GHc 2,667,215 was raised for the event, of which receipts were issued, as against an expenditure of GHc 2,367,426.06.”

Reiterating earlier assertions from the Trade Ministry, Mr. Kyeremanten explained that, the Millennium Excellence Foundation was totally in charge of the structure and distribution of the sponsorship package for the event, although it was operating under guidelines provided by the Ministry.

As part of arrangements towards the organisation of the event, the Ministry of Trade and Industry insisted that, all monies raised in support of the event be paid into an account held by the Ministry “to ensure financial integrity and accountability which the organizers agreed to.”

The Minority in Parliament has maintained that, there was some wrongdoing by ministry, and has indicated that, it is ready to appear before any investigative body to provide evidence in the form of receipts to support their claims of extortion.

The Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, also wants Parliament to set up a committee to probe the alleged extortion.

But Mr. Kyeremanten in his statement said it was “difficult to imagine how a government institution seeking to extort monies from individuals would insist on issuing official receipts”.

He stated that, the Foundation was “specifically instructed not to collect any monies to place persons or organisations on the Presidential High table for the evening, and they provided assurances that this would not happen.”

He added that, “for the avoidance of doubt, none of the individuals or companies who sat on the Presidential High Table at the event made a contribution of $100,000 prior to the event as being alleged.”

According to Mr. Kyeremanten, there were even individuals seated at the Presidential High Table “who did not make any monetary contribution before or after the event.”

“From the information available to the Ministry, there was no extortion of monies from any expatriate business owner as being alleged. Indeed, no single individual has come out to make a claim of extortion,”

Find the Minister’s full statement here

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post GHc2.6m was raised for Expatriate Business Awards – Alan appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The President is seeking full disclosure on the matter, and has given the Minister until 5 pm today [Wednesday] to report to him.

Although the matter has  been running for nearly a week, President Akufo-Addo’s summon comes a day after the fall out from allegations culminated in the Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah, clashing with the Minority Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa in Parliament.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry has already dissociated itself from these allegations which first came from the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak.

Mr. Mubarak said the fees charged at the Ghana Expatriate Business Awards (GEBA) were not approved by Parliament, adding that the monies were also not accounted for in the Internally Generated Funds [IGF] of the Ministry’s accounts.

The Trade Ministry, in a statement, said it played no role in determining prices for seats at the event, and clarified that it only facilitated the implementation of a new initiative by the Millennium Excellence Foundation.

It also said the foundation was to take that responsibility for the organisation of the event.

Mr. Ablakwa had previously called on the Trades Ministry to apologize to President Akufo-Addo for embarrassing him, and return the monies to the expatriates.

But Mr. Ahenkorah described Mr. Ablakwa as a “big liar” and accused him of making baseless allegations against the government. He did this by barging into an interview the MP was granting on the matter in Parliament.

He subsequently defended his verbal assault on Ablakwa, saying “we must let these people understand that we are in power”.

The deputy Minister showed no remorse when interviewed on Eyewitness News, claiming that Mr. Ablakwa was out of order when he suggested that he and the NPP government were corrupt.

“…calling me corrupt and describing my person and my activity as corrupt. On the floor of Parliament, it’s a different ball game. I will not allow anybody to denigrate myself or my ministry or my minister and just go scot-free. If you say that, I have to pay it back to you, especially when these people were in government, they just looking down upon everybody and calling our president names, this time we will not allow.”

“A person like Okudzeto Ablakwa can never ever tag me as corrupt when he himself cannot account for some of his practices when he was in government. And I take serious exception to anybody trying to tag me in that manner. What was so unprintable of the language that I used? I did not say anything that was not true. He is a thief. He took money to go and do Campus Connect,” Mr. Ahenkorah fumed.

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By:Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Nana Addo writes to Alan over alleged Trade Ministry extortion appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, each of the ten regions would have one park with the requisite facilities and flexible land schemes to facilitate the setting up of industries.

[contextly_sidebar id=”TwgSb9YWYzIXlTEPaJjbgJ1JNsA0Q1TB”]This initiative which draws heavily on similar models from Asia, is expected to create thousands of jobs for Ghanaians.

Speaking at the ongoing National Policy Summit in Accra, Alan Kyerematen explained that the move is geared towards enhancing industrial production across the ten regions and generally promoting export development.

“It takes us to the next component of our transformation agenda which is to establish at least one major industrial park in each of the ten regions. If we are talking about enhancement of industrial production then obviously access to lands, energy must be a critical factor. That is why these industrial parks are actually important. The magic of Asia, China Korea are all about the establishment of industrial parks and special economic zones.

“We are actually going to aggressively promote export development because if you produce, you should be able to sell. Although we have what I believe is quite a significant market , it’s still limited so we want to aggressively promote exports to take advantage of the enhanced production that is coming up,” Mr. Kyeremanten explained.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta says government is committed to implementing reforms in the economic management of the country.

This he said will lay the foundation for the country’s industrial take-off.

“The issue that keeps resounding in my mind is one of what we started talking about-irreversibility. How do we create other institutions or policies which do not enable too much political freedom on core things that we as a country believe in?

“The capping of the earmarked funds is a sign of that type of irreversibility and therefore it is in that same vein that we should begin to look at whether it is revenues or expenditures or wages to reduce that operative margin, especially in election year to ensure that we do not go back to the bad old ways.”

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Alan Kyerematen: We’ll establish ten industrial parks across Ghana appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.