Appointments Committee too large – Majority Leader

The Appointments Committee of Parliament currently vetting the ministerial nominees has too many members, Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has said.

According to him, with each nominee needing to answer questions from virtually all members of the committee, too much time is spent during screening, slowing the process.

The committee began the vetting of ministers-designate on Friday January 20. So far only six of the 36 nominees have appeared before it.

But speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM Monday January 23, the Majority Leader said: “The membership of the Appointments Committee is too large. If a nominee is to take and answer questions from all 26 members, it will take a lot of time.

“Osafo Maafo (Senior Minister-designate), for instance, spent four hours [before the committee] and that was a lot of time. There is no time to waste because of the volume of work on the table.”

He added: “The past government prepared a budget for the first three months of 2017 for this new government, but after the three months the new government will also have to prepare its own budget for the next financial year, factoring all of its programmes. But here we are, the new government does not have ministers yet and so who is going to prepare the budget? You need now to have a new set of ministers in place who will prepare the budget and that means the vetting process will have to move faster.

“The composition of the Appointments Committee is not the best for us and we need to have a second look at it.”