The chairman of the Appointment’s Committee of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu has rebutted accusations of being high-handed and stifling questions by Minority members on the committee.
“In all fairness, I think it is only about two or three instances where I have overruled, and even that I allow the persons to go through until I determine that the facts being put out are not necessary in determining where a candidate is fit for purpose. The charge is really unfair,” he stated in an interview with Joy FM’s Elton Brobbey on Tuesday, January 24.
The chairman of the committee abruptly “ruled out” Tamale North MP and member of the committee, Alhassan Suhuyini, from questioning Energy Minister-designate Boakye Agyarko on Monday, 23 January, after a heated back-and-forth between the two legislators that followed the Minority MP’s initial question.
Mr Owusu cut off Mr Suhuyini, who, at the time, was vehemently protesting against the manner in which he was being handled by the chairman after Mr Owusu had intervened to stop him from asking a question pertaining to a money laundering scandal at the Bank of New York where Mr Agyarko had worked prior to his resignation.
The NDC MP said he was merely trying to demand clarity on the circumstances that surrounded Mr Agyarko’s resignation vis-à-vis the money laundering scandal but the chairman of the committee felt Mr Suhuyini was breaching the rules of the sitting by asking such a question.
The sitting temporarily degenerated into a market square atmosphere until the chairman restored order. While explaining to the committee that the New York branch of the bank had nothing to do with the money laundering scandal that happened in the bank’s UK branch, Mr Agyarko wondered why Mr Suhuyini would attempt to link him, in the first place, to a scandal in which neither his bank branch nor his name was implicated.
Mr Suhuyini was subsequently cut off by the chairman as he attempted asking further questions and explaining his reasons for asking the first question.
He complained to the chairman that he was “unhappy” about the way he had been treated on the committee by the chairman.
However, Mr Owusu indicated that according to parliamentary regulations, which he is supposed to uphold as chairman, questions posed to nominees are supposed to be devoid of “names of persons or statements of fact unless they are necessary to make the question intelligible”, adding: “In case of statements of fact, can be authenticated by the member concerned.”
In addition, he pointed out: “Questions shall not contain any arguments, expression of opinion, inferences, imputations, epithets, or controversial, ironical, or offensive expression of hypothetical cases.
“A question shall not be asked which makes or implies charge of a personal character or which reflects on a character or conduct except of persons in their official or public capacity.”
It was the last rule that the chairman felt Mr Suhuyini had flouted hence the decision to overrule that particular question.
“When he asked the question he was not alleging that the Minister-designate had been named in any misconduct or in any way related to the issues that had happened in the bank. Just because he had worked in an organisation when something happened, which he was not involved personally in anyway – people who were involved have actually been named and prosecuted – why should that be the basis for asking him a question not about the bank’s conduct but about his prospective work? I don’t see where it relates at all!”
He was of the view that “people may conceive things in their minds but it must be relevant”.
Mr Owusu underscored that he did not “get the sense with which he (Mr Suhuyini) was trying to rope it in, and really for our purposes it is unacceptable in parliamentary practice to name and make allegations about persons who are not available to answer”, stating further: “The allegations he was making about Bank of New York, they were not there in the box and could not respond whether what you were saying was in fact true or not.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
