The Associate Professor at the University of Ghana School of Law, Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, has observed that the approval of all the six ministerial nominees is as a result of the individual choices of the various Members of Parliament (MPs).
He insisted that the new leadership of the Minority Caucus in Parliament must not be held responsible for the approval of the six ministerial appointees.
“Despite the presence of some influential personalities of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament on March 24, the Minority Caucus failed to see through its planned rejections of the appointees.
“If anyone was to be held for blame, it should be the leadership of the party at the national level since it was evident its MPs did not heed their directive to reject the ministerial nominees,” Prof. Appiagyei-Atua stressed.
According to him, he was not sure the new leadership of the Minority Caucus must be blamed for the approval of all the ministerial nominees because the leadership of NDC were in Parliament.
Prof. Appiagyei-Atua explained that “if the party had made a decision for their MPs to toe a certain line and they refused to heed to that and any blame at all should be laid, it should be the national leadership, especially the national chairman to MPs who were in leadership positions in Parliament”.
Prof. Appiagyei-Atua indicated that the outcome of March 24 boiled down to personal preferences of the legislators and degree to which national interest was of importance to them.
“But I think that at the end of the day, it comes down to individual choices, it is a question of how the MPs can look at the bigger picture, not just their personal interests or even the interest of the party, but the interest of the country as a whole,” he stated.
However, the NDC issued directives to Minority Caucus in Parliament to reject the new ministerial appointees in a press release on February 19 in order to aid the push for reduction in the size of the current government.
However, March 24, Parliament finally approved President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s six ministerial nominees, after several hours of disagreement and suspension of the vote on approval of the nominees in Parliament.
