According to him, the bill was far advanced and needed only three readings in Parliament to become law, but Mensah-Bonsu, who was then the Minority Leader, said his team members were not interested.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ZpmQZTOCIlBaocBCObI0DUrFC5iGB6xb”]“We had shepherded the bill and we were left with just few clauses. But you know when it got to the crunch and we were supposed to do it…it was the opposition leader then, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, who said there were better things they [Minority] are thinking about, [Mensah-Bonsu said] our people are not willing to do it, we would not want to do it. We [NPP Minority members] have had a meeting and we think that this is not the right time so when we [NPP] come [to power] we will pass it,” George Loh said on Citi FM’s current affairs and news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday.

George Loh explained that his committee had done all the necessary amendments to the bill saying “we were at the tail end of it, few more amendments and we would have been done” but lamented that the minority members were adamant.

Mr. Loh, who is also a former Member of Parliament for North Dayi Constituency, said the NDC did all within its power push for the passage of the bill including getting the Attorney General’s Department to incorporate all the amendments needed into one document for easier scrutiny and approval.

RTI bill could be passed within three days

He noted that at that level, the bill could have been passed into law within three days, but for the Minority’s resistance.

“Let me give information about what we did on the RTI bill. We got the Attorney General’s department to get to incorporate all the amendments in a totally new document. So what was going to come to Parliament was no longer going to come with all the amendments on it. So we were going to go quickly go into the first reading, then one or two sessions, make sure we go through and make few changes then go through the second reading and then the third reading then it is passed.”

“So in actual fact, in three days, if government is minded to ensure that the Attorney General comes to sit in Parliament and be part of this bill, it could be passed. We have done all the work. We’ve incorporated all the suggestions and did all the necessary engagements,” he added.

Background of RTI bill

The RTI bill,which is expected to make information easily accessible by the media and Ghanaians to boost the fight against corruption has been in legislation for well over 17 years now because successive governments have failed to implement it despite several assurances.

Efforts by several advocacy groups to put pressure on the duty bearers to have the bill passed have also not yielded any positive results.

At his last address to Parliament, outgoing President John Mahama begged Parliament to pass the bill at the last minute but his call was ignored.

Although the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has promised to pass the bill, it is unclear how soon that would be.

Cabinet yet to hold talks on RTI bill – Hamid

Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid, in January 2018 claimed that Cabinet had not held discussions on the RTI bill.

“Cabinet has proposed to have a special session to look at this particular bill because of the importance that it has before we then pass it and take it to Parliament…The bill is before Cabinet. It will be discussed. If you ask me when, I will not be able to say, but I am sure pretty soon the Cabinet Secretary will get a day when the entire Cabinet will retreat in order to look at this bill properly and then when we have a final consensus on it, we can then take it to Parliament,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Kyei Mensah-Bonsu blocked passage of RTI bill – George Loh appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, the Speaker should have insisted that the minority correct the motion they presented for before the House for such a probe to be initiated.

[contextly_sidebar id=”Ar5sVzVjETrytGbyHI2bmcbZPNzBvRim”]Speaking to Citi News after Friday’s urgent sitting on the matter, Kyei Mensah-Bonsu who is also the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs said although the majority was not opposed to the call for a probe into the matter, it believed that the Speaker should have followed the due processes and not supported the Minority to stampede the laid down parliamentary procedure.

“I felt that the proper thing for the Speaker to do was for him to allow us to constitute the committee and then asked them to do the proper thing and if the proper thing was done then the committee will begin to sit, but he had his own reasons and said to us that it may be misconstrued so notwithstanding his earlier ruling that the whole thing was wrong and it was an incompetent motion….so he stepped back and said well, now that I have pointed out these things out to you, if you are minded to do the right thing fine, if you are not minded, the committee will sit anyway,” he said.

There was a heated argument on the floor of parliament when the House sat to consider the motion filed by the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak Mohammed.

The debate came about after the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, described the motion as incompetent.

The Majority Leader had argued that, the motion calling for the special sitting and an ad-hoc committee, was not properly done and thus constitutes a “gross abuse of the processes of the House,” a claim Haruna Iddrisu vehemently rejected.

After a two-hour suspension of sitting, the Speaker of Parliament invited the Majority and the Minority leader to present their nominees for the ad-hoc committee but not to make their case about the substantive issue.

While Muntaka Mubarak said his side was satisfied by the Speaker’s decision, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the speaker’s action was wrong.

He how, however,d his side will comply with it and it has “nothing to hide.”

Background

The extortion allegations was first made in Parliament by The Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, in December 2017.

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 issue was further reinforced by Mr. Ablakwa, who suffered verbal assaults from Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah over the matter.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry initially dissociated itself from these allegations.

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.

But the Ministry after an order from the President to probe the matter, clarified that an amount of GHc 2,667,215 was realized from the event.

The organizers of the Awards had also explained that no one paid to sit close to the President, and that the amount raised was gotten from sponsorship through a fundraising at the event.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Majority surprised by C’ttee formation despite ‘incompetent’ motion appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He lamented that the wrangling prevented more of their members from campaigning for the party.

[contextly_sidebar id=”NiOHfqSSSLk4lTO9d1qi3QzjqY2tBmLp”]“Any serious reflection will reveal that when the army of the NPP lifted high the flag of the elephant to go into combat a few among us decided not to be part of the battle. Not only did they only participate, they tried to dissuade others not to join because as they said, because Nana Addo was leading us, the party could not win. The party won a resounding victory with Nana Addo leading us. Without that group of party members.

NPP currently holds 169 majority seats in Parliament while the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has 106 seats.

Despite the huge margin, Mensah Bonsu said the NPP could have reduced the NDC’s seat to less than 90.

“…We won but with all hands on deck I believe we could have inflicted a much more pulverizing defeat on the NDC by perhaps reducing their numbers to less than 100 or even less than 90 seats in Parliament.  The election results bare testimony to that. There are about 17 seats we could have won nationwide if we could have worked slightly harder. We did not win these seats because among other things of our own internal conflicts…Without those internal conflicts we could have done yet better than we did,” he added.

The party in previous years battled with internal wrangling that led to the suspension of its National Chairman, General Secretary and Second Vice Chair, Paul Afoko, Kwabena Agyepong and Sammy Crabbe respectively.

Some disgruntled parliamentary aspirants also run in the December election as independent candidates thus weakening to an extent the NPP’s strength in some areas.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Internal wrangling cost NPP 17 parliamentary seats – Kyei Mensa Bonsu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, the former speaker among his instructions to the Minority was to kick against the presence of the press during yesterday’s engagement with the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei.

[contextly_sidebar id=”g9XNOIlhJVhyigKJ2Hj0EXxFIl0dVsZS”]Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu made the comments in reaction to claims by the Minority that the new Speaker, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye was being unfair and stifling them in the House.

Parliament was thrown into near chaos when Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu express his displeasure over how the speaker had deliberately ensured that they do not thoroughly probe the government’s ‘Planting for food and jobs’ programme.

The Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak who spoke to Citi News after the session said Prof. Oquaye has through various actions since his appointment acted against the Minority in the House.

“It is out of frustration…. the minority, we have lost all the opportunity to vent our frustration so we have to, unfortunately, burst in anger which may not be called for but our patient is running out,” he said.

“We in the minority are really disappointed in the manner in which the speaker has been handling affairs in the how since his appointment…. Since this speaker came, we’ve been treated with a lot of disrespect,” he added.

But the Majority Leader says the claims are false.

According to him, the former Speaker of Parliament, who is a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was more bias when the NDC MPs were in the majority in Parliament.

Doe Adjaho while speaker on several occasions deliberately refused to grant audience to the minority in the House when it came to making a submission on the floor.

He also added that Doe Adjaho, despite being out of the seat as speaker, “thinks he is still in control.”

“The man [Doe Adjaho] is behind the scenes, he still wants to control Parliament. Yesterday, he even called them and was telling them that, they should not agree for us in committee to allow you the press to be present. The man thinks he is still in control.”

On his reaction to the Minority in Parliament’s complaint about the Speaker’s behaviour, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu explained, “If on an occasion you don’t find the ruling or direction of Mr. Speaker favourable, there are avenues open to you. You don’t get raucous in the chamber, you don’t get riotous.”

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Doe Adjaho controlling Minority caucus – Majority leader appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Ghana’s delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament, was left stranded outside the legislative house in Abuja, on February 10, 2017, after the speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament refused to swear in the members because the list presented was more than the number of seats available to Ghana.

The incident, which some members called an “international embarrassment to the country” resulted from the refusal of Fred Opare Ansah, Member of Parliament for Suhum, to step down as a Member of the regional legislature.

The MP for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, subsequently stepped down from Ghana’s delegation to save the country from further embarrassment.

Commenting on the issue, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, who is also the Minster for Parliamentary Affairs, said he cannot be blamed for the embarrassment and called for closer collaboration to avoid future occurrence.

[contextly_sidebar id=”k0ldiG89gpiEpHVHNRKqGN4rqQTTZxEX”]“The composition of the last ECOWAS parliament was predicated on some assumption and agreement that we were going to re-constitute the entire delegation once the term of that parliament came to an end, and all those who were sent there agreed to that. It was a betrayal of trust what happened later, and then my name gets to be linked. Nothing can be furthered away from the truth,” he insisted.

Below is Kyei Mensah Bonsu’s explanation to Parliament on Friday:

“Mr. Speaker it is not as if we are not aware of the protocols underpinning the ECOWAS parliament, we are aware and I will not say it was not ignorance. When the very embarrassing situation occurred the way it occurred, I have been personally linked as if it was my insistence that Parliament seated the delegation the way the delegation came to be constituted…nothing can be furthered away from this.”

“I know that people who are clothed in pettiness and mischief went out there to tarnish my name that it was the Majority Leader who led Parliament to do that.  It was not the Majority Leader who led Parliament to do that. As the Minority Leader is aware, Mr. Speaker this matter came before you, we had agreed about the composition, and we had agreed to terminate membership. I think this should be clear to everyone else because I hear people amongst us saying that the decision was faulty, it wasn’t.

“The composition of the last ECOWAS parliament was predicated on some assumption and agreement that we were going to re-constitute the entire delegation once the term of that parliament came to an end and all those who sent there agreed to that. It was a betrayal of trust what happened later and then my name gets to be linked. Nothing can be furthered away from the truth.”

“I think I must forcefully register that. I’m not angry. Beyond that, there have been an attempt to engage the colleague in question unfortunately, over the past three days, he’s been coming to my office but we haven’t find time to meet because of what we have to do preparing towards the delivery of the budget statement. I believe that we can find space maybe over the weekend to engage in that and then bring this matter to a closure.”

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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Betrayal of trust caused ECOWAS Parliament fiasco – Majority Leader appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.