Bernard Ahiafor was extremely partisan, protective of ministerial nominees – Minority alleges

The Minority Caucus of the Appointments Committee of Parliament has accused the committee's Chairman, Bernard Ahiafor, of being partisan during the ministerial vetting process.

Speaking to the press on Wednesday, January 15, 2025, the Minority, led by Gideon Boako, the Member of Parliament of Tano North, raised several concerns they observed during the process.

According to him, one of the observations was the partisan behavior displayed by the chairman, who is also from the Majority side of the house.

He claimed the chairman was protective of the nominees, which limited the committee’s ability to properly scrutinise them and prevented a thorough vetting process.

“The chairman of the committee was the first real obstacle to a diligent vetting of the ministerial nominees. He denied the Ghanaian people and the Minority members of the committee the opportunity to conduct a thorough vetting of the nominees. He was protective of the nominees and extremely partisan,” he said.

Boako further stated that the members of the committee were not furnished with the CVs of the nominees prior to the vetting, despite the Speaker of Parliament receiving notice of the nominations on January 9, 2025, five days before the scheduled vetting.

“The notice of the nominations was received by the Speaker on January 9, 2025, and was subsequently referred to the Appointments Committee. Acting in good faith, the Minority fully committed to the process. This stemmed from our desire to ensure that President Mahama have the opportunity to shape his government without delay.

“Nonetheless, we expected that the members and friends of the committee would be given sufficient questioning time to examine every matter in detail, unfortunately, this was not the case. Members of the committee were not provided with the CVs of the nominees ahead of the vetting,” he alleged.

The Minority concluded that these actions were attempts by the Majority to obstruct the effective scrutiny of the nominees.

“When they were eventually set with the CVs during the vetting, the Chairman did not allow for the examination of those CVs as preliminary issues, being the practice in the past. The deliberate refusal to provide the CVs of the nominees to committee members in advance and the refusal to invite questions on the CVs were all calculated attempts to obstruct constructive and effective scrutiny of the nominees,” he concluded.

MAG/AE