How Hawa Koomson topped voting of three Akufo-Addo ministerial-nominees

The vetting of Mavis Hawa Koomson as Minister-designate for Fisheries and Aquaculture and events thereof had followed the script until the voting by the plenary to determine whether she should be approved or not.

It was expected that her vetting was going to generate headlines and she more than delivered with her lack of appreciation of issues in the fishing industry.

Expectations of her not being recommended for approval by the Appointments Committee of Parliament also came to pass.

The aberration, however, was her approval by the main house to make her a minister under President Akufo-Addo’s second term.

Owing to her poor showing at the vetting and her gun-shooting incident, there were expectations that despite the New Patriotic Party having a slender lead in terms of the number of MPs (made possible by the Fomena MP), Hawa Koomson was going to be rejected.

These assumptions were based on hopes that some NPP MPs who were embarrassed by her performance would, just like the voting for the speakership, switch camp and vote against her.

For the NDC caucus, there was no doubt that they were going to reject someone who has prevented them from winning the Awutu Senya East seat on three occasions.

However, at the end of the voting by parliament in the wee hours of Thursday, March 4, Hawa Koomson polled the highest number of votes between the three nominees who were under consideration.

Hawa Koomson earned the confidence of her colleague MPs to head the Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministry with 161 votes representing 60.75% of the total votes cast.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the most popular of the three nominees had 155 of the 265 votes representing 58.65%.

Kojo Akoto Afriyie of the Food and Agriculture Ministry got 143 votes with a percentage of 53.96.

All three candidates have thus been approved after crossing the 50% mark.