Among notable changes, the Subsidiary Legislation Committee recommended that the Ghana Legal Council should not be allowed to conduct interviews for entrants into the Ghana School of Law.

[contextly_sidebar id=”TcuydmAJrxbpiJW7PuVmQPEQEcGM2k29″]The Committee, however, said the entrance examinations for admission into the school would continue.

Despite the seeming compromise, the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, said he was still in opposition to the legislation.

He continued his opposition today [Friday] in Parliament and per Standing Order 113 of Parliament, a member has the right to challenge a vote and request for a head count or a division, which Mr. Muntaka wanted to do.

But he was left on his feet for about 20 minutes after being ignored by the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye.

Oquaye acting worse than Idi Amin, Mobutu

After proceedings, the Minority Chief Whip voiced his displeasure to the media by describing Prof. Oquaye as a dictator and comparing him to despots like Uganda’s Idi Amin and the DR Congo’s Mobutu Sese Seko.

“I keep repeating that civil society should be interested in how the Speaker is conducting himself. It is so terrible… We have rules. As for listening to us, you listen, make your ruling and if we want to challenge your ruling, we know what to do. But to deliberately and continuously do what he is doing, I think he is the biggest threat to our democracy.”

“The way he is behaving, I think that all of us need to be very concerned and very worried about the way the Speaker is conducting himself… I doubt whether even Mobutu or even Idi Ami can be behaving the way he did. It is so shameful that Speaker continues to do this and just disregard the rules of the House.”

Mr. Muntaka further maintained that more MPs were against the approval of the Legal Profession Regulations.

“I am super convinced that those for ‘No’ won and we wanted to confirm that beyond any reasonable doubt by having a headcount. If you have a head count, it puts the thing beyond doubt.”

Opposition to L.I. by law students

The Association of Law Students on January 29, 2018 petitioned President Nana Akufo-Addo to cause the withdrawal of the controversial Legal Profession Regulations 2017 from Parliament.

The Association wants the President to impress on Members of Parliament to vote against the regulation.

The General Legal Council laid the Regulations in Parliament in mid-December 2017, in response to a Supreme Court order for a clear admission procedure into the Ghana School of Law, and call to the Ghana Bar.

The proposed LI in question, among other things, states that the General Legal Council will conduct an entrance exam for the admission of students to the school, and conduct interviews for all applicants who pass the Ghana School of Law Entrance Examination.

The LI is expected to become Law this month, February, 2018.

But the law students maintain that if the document is passed in its current form, it will restrict access to legal education.

Law School SRC angry after over 80% fail exams

The Student’s Representative Council [SRC] of the Ghana School of Law, recently called for the school’s Independent Examinations Board to be scrapped, describing it as a threat to legal education in Ghana, after only 91 of the over 500 students passed the May exams in 2017.

Protocol dictates that these students re-sit the exams, but the SRC has demanded that the results are scrapped, to allow the students to proceed with their six-month internship in March.

Almost 300 students are to repeat the entire course, whilst 170 students would have to be referred.

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

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This is contrary to suggestions from the MP for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga, who said the Minority reached a decision to pass him before Tuesday’s vetting.

[contextly_sidebar id=”2ZGJLWpOjqXBA3nVyrrGXwYZzqOlDUo6″]Mr. Ayariga had said this was to dispel the notion that officials of the former National Democratic Congress administration were scared of the Special Prosecutor nominee.

“We overwhelmingly as a minority had taken the decision that we will pass him any day,  because people out there perceived that we were afraid of him and we wanted to show that we are afraid of nobody,” Ayariga said.

But speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Mubarak, said all decisions on nominees by the Appointments Committee have always been done after vetting.

He however said that he expected Mr. Amidu to be passed because he had in the past been approved by the Parliament for multiple ministerial portfolios.

“Looking at his pedigree having appeared before the committee, unless something extraordinary came up, I didn’t see how he could have been disqualified, but to say that the decision was taken long before, maybe he, Mahama Ayariga, can explain that,” Mr. Mubarak said.

Minority went in without biases

Mr. Amidu is known to be a vehement critic of the NDC and some of his criticisms were expected to come up for scrutiny during his vetting.

Aware of this, Mr. Mubarak said the Minority MPs were careful not to sound or appear emotional.

“What we agreed was that as members of Parliament, we must do our work without regards to any other reservations – I mean our emotions. He [Amidu] talking about our party should not be an issue that we should use to cloud our judgement.”

“We even cautioned each other that even where it is necessary for you to raise something he might have said in public that you vehemently disagreed with, you do that in a way that will solicit answers but not in a way that is provocative to disrupt what we are doing,” the Asawase MP added.

On when the committee’s report will be ready, Mr. Muntaka said he expected it to come before the House by Friday “so that we close the week and we do not have to bother ourselves with this early next week.”

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

The post Muntaka ‘contradicts’ Ayariga on passing Amidu before vetting appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Parliament last week tasked the five member ad-hoc committee to investigate the claims in a motion fronted by the Minority Chief Whip.

Muntaka, who appeared before the Committee on Thursday, used the opportunity to tell the committee what he knows about the alleged extortion.

Each member of the Committee also took turns to ask Mr. Muntaka several questions they believe could aid the Committee further probe the issue.

Speaking to the media moments after he was discharged by the Committee, Mr. Muntaka, who is also the Member of Parliament for Asawase Constituency, said the Committee did not consider him a friend.

Muntaka felt that instead of  the Committee seeing him as someone to help them with more information, some of the members sought to find faults in his submissions.

“I feel some of the questions with the greatest respect to the members were not necessary. Some of them were just talking about things that were very trivial; some of them in my view were not seeing me as someone who was to help the committee to do its work. It was about we want to see whether to find faults with you. And I thought that maybe not too many times have this happened, but we will be able to grow over it as Parliament.”

“I think they were to see me as somebody who was going to help them to do the work but unfortunately it didn’t appear to me, but it was about how can we find a way to discredit what he is saying so that at the end of the day we can say at after all the thing didn’t happen. It is in our own interest as Parliament to do well to be able to get to the bottom. If we try to whitewash it, well, the judgment will be that of Ghanaians,” he remarked.

Despite the complaints, Muntaka said he was optimistic that the Committee will do the right thing.

“I’m optimistic that this Committee will do what is right so that at the end of the day, all of us can be confident in whatever outcome they come out with in their report.”

Background

The Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, first made the extortion allegation in Parliament 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: Godwin A. Allotey & Sixtus Dong Ullo/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Expatriates saga: Some C’ttee members sought to discredit me – Muntaka appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.