The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has taken punitive measures against members of Parliament’s Appointment Committee visibly seen disrupting vetting proceedings on Thursday January 30, 2025.
The individuals have been suspended effective today January 31, 2025 and will last two weeks.
Vetting proceedings became chaotic following the vetting of Communication Minister-designate, Samuel Nartey George, popularly known as Sam George and minister-designate for sports, Kofi Adams. Unlike in the case the vetting proceedings involving other minister-designates, Sam George was subjected to prolonged hours of vetting.
The minority side argued that they could no longer proceed after vetting the minister-designate for sports which ended close to 11 pm.
According to the minority side, their protest was due to the reason that they had agreed to vet a certain number of minister-designates but the majority sought to override the agreement. This was followed by aggression from both sides, as none was willing to reach a compromise.
Some committee members namely the Majority and Minority Chief Whips respectively, Frank Annoh-Dompreh and Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor along with Alhassan Sulemana Tampuli and Jerry Ahmed Shaib could be seen shoving one another off and others destroying state properties.
Although the committee has apologized for the incident, the Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica) demanded the Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin to subject the culprits to some punitive measures.
To deal with the issue, Speaker Bagbin has directed the following measures to be taken;
- The Clerk of Parliament has been instructed to formally lodge a criminal complaint with the police for a full investigation into the matter.
- The Committee of Selection has been directed to reconstitute the Appointments Committee.
- The Clerk of Parliament will conduct a full assessment of damages to property in the Appointments Committee room, with any members found responsible to be surcharged for repairs.
- A seven-member committee, chaired by Emmanuel Bedzrah, has been tasked with investigating the incident and presenting a report within 10 days for further action.
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