Ghana's parliament will begin vetting alist of minister-designates of President John Evans Atta-Mills today in thecapital, Accra. The parliament appointments committee will begin vetting all 35executives nominated by the president for various ministerial positions. Theminister designates are expectedto take turns answering questions frommembers of the appointments committee about themselves and the variousministries they would be managing. Parliament also urged members of the publicwith information or questions for any of the minister-designates to make themavailable to the committee before the vetting process begins today. TheHonorable Felix Twumasi-Appiah is a member of the appointments committee. Hetells reporter Peter Clottey that the committee would stay above partisanpolitics in today's hearing.
"Firstand foremost, the appointment committee, our mandate as per our constitutionand our standing orders in parliament, is supposed to determine the suitabilityor otherwise of a nominee to become a minister of state. So that is exactlywhat we intend to do on the appointment committee when we sit on Friday andbeyond. So we are going to determine the suitability of the individual nomineeto the positions as per the president's appointment, and then we will advisethe president accordingly," Twumasi-Appiahpointed out.
He said the committee wouldalso determine a variety of things about the nominees in order for them to knowwhat line of action to take.
"So what is going to happenis that we have to determine their suitability in that they would have to swearan oath to have to do with their capacity as individuals persons as to whetherthey would be able to hold up the positions assigned to them to compliment thepresident's vision. And also meeting the many aspirations of the ordinaryGhanaian as to why they voted for the president. So for us, our basicrequirement is to determine the suitability of the nominees as to whether theywould be able to hold those positions or otherwise," he said.
Twumasi-Appiah said theappointments committee would stay above partisan politics.
"What Ghanaians should expectfrom us is the best job, and they should expect that as a committee, we wouldbe doing our best as prescribed by the constitution and by the standing ordersof the parliament of the republic of Ghana. We are not going to fall short ofany of our standing orders or the constitutional mandate for us to do what weought to do or what we have to do,"Twumasi-Appiah noted.
He said if the committeefinds any of the nominees to be unfit for the office, the committee wouldadvise President Atta-Mills accordingly.
"If anybody falls short ofthe requirement, Ghanaians should expect us to just tell the president that'excuse me Mr. President, we believe that this minister cannot be a minister',"he said.
Twumasi-Appiah the committeewould conduct a thorough investigation to ascertain whether a nominee isqualified or not in order carry out its constitutional mandate.
"You would very much recallthat during the parliament before the present one, we had certainrecommendations and certain memoranda about some of the minister-designatescoming up, and we had to disqualify some ministers. And some Ghanaians recalledme saying that I have failed about three ministers in President John Kufuor'sadministration, and that what would become of me this time around since I'm amember of parliament of the ruling party? We are not going to leave any stoneunturned. All those allegations that have been brought forth would beinvestigated before any action is taken," Twumasi-Appiah pointed out.
He said if any of theministers designate is adjudged to have flouted any law, that individual wouldbe rejected and sent to the proper authorities for them to face the full rigorsof the law.
"The parliamentary selectcommittee or the appointments committee is a equivalent to a high court insitting. The only difference is that we cannot sentence anybody to let say aprison term. What it means is that if we have anybody that we believe stronglythat has breached the laws of the Republic of Ghana, we can recommend theperson to the appropriate institution for them to be taken care of. What itmeans is that we are going to sit and listen to all those allegations and thenmake our recommendations to the appropriate institutions. Once we think thatthe allegations are nothing but just mere rumor, we will allow the appropriateinstitution to investigate them and then come back with a recommendation to thecommittee. And then based on the recommendations, we would take our decision asand how we deem it fit," he said.