The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has ruled that the house will not consider any business from the Ministry of Finance until the sector Minister, Ken Ofori Atta appears before the house to answer question on COVID-19 fund and others.
This comes after an application made by the first Deputy Minority Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim that, the house should reject all business from the ministry until the Minister fulfills the directives from the speaker that mandates the minister to account for the COVID-19 monies on the floor of Parliament.
“Until we go through the accountability process, we will not take that motion… Today, he has another request before us. That will also be affected.”
“Until he comes to respond to the questions and explanation how the money has been applied, we will not entertain any business from that Ministry,” Mr. Bagbin said.
The Minister was scheduled to answer questions and deliver an important statement on the floor on Thursday before he puts in a late request for the session to be postponed.
The Minister has 16 questions to answer on a number of issues, including the utilization of COVID-19 funds.
Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu on the other hand came to the defense of the Minister following the postponement of the session.
According to him, Ofori-Atta was yet to go over the responses he was expected to deliver in Parliament.
He indicated that, it is not true that the finance minister is running away from accountability.
“For anybody to jump to the conclusion that the minister is running away from responsibility, I shudder to think of how that is coming about.” The Majority Leader said.
He said it has been recommended that the Finance Minister appear before Parliament on Wednesday, June 22.
