Parliament, Judiciary budget cap: Akufo-Addo never sanctioned letter from secretary – Majority Leader

Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Majority Leader of Parliament says President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo never instructed his secretary, Nana Bediatuo Asante, to write a letter to Parliament communicating a decision to cap the budgetary allocation for Parliament and the Judiciary.

According to him, Nana Bediatuo Asante was not briefed with the full facts before the letter was written to the Speaker of Parliament.

He explained that at the time the Secretary to the President wrote the letter to Parliament, the President was on his way out of the country to Ivory Coast and discussions relating to the Parliamentary and Judiciary budget were at the consideration stage but was not complete “then in his absence the letter came”.

“I was under the impression that the President [....] has done the communication or continued the discussion with his secretary, [but] it turned out that the discussion was not conclusive and on account of what has been happening earlier, the secretary wrote the letter,” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said.

“The President insisted that look when I am even travelling outside and I write to Parliament as an arm of government and in recognition of the authority of the House of Parliament, I sign under my own hand, so in these matters, I should sign under my own hand,” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu told Joy News in an interview on Wednesday evening.

When asked how is it possible for the Secretary to the President to write a letter to Parliament without getting the full facts from his boss, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs said:

“I don’t know the details. What I do know is what I have told you. If the secretary is writing on the instruction of the President [and] it begins by saying His Excellency has received this and I am directed by the President to do this, that was not the language in the first letter.”

Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu refused to admit that Nana Bediatuo Asante wrote the letter on his own volition but was quick to state that, “You know I’m related to it and I thought he should have technically - if the President is not available and his place has to be filled - the Vice President was there and in the absence of the President the Vice President should be writing.

He continued: “In the temporary absence of the President, if the President has spoken to the Secretary, the Secretary could also write except that the language should be distinct to reflect that, but we didn’t see that - I must confess - which is what the President has come to correct.”

Nana Bediatuo Asante, the Secretary to the President wrote to Parliament proposing a GH¢77 million slash in the budget estimates of the Judiciary and a GH¢119 million deduction from that of the legislature respectively, compared to the 2020 approved amounts.

The Speaker who was incensed by the budget cut threatened to block the approval of the 2021 Budget Statement, saying: “The Budget is not for the Executive, we have the final power to approve and so what the Constitution has done is for them to make a recommendation and to negotiate during the deliberation before the House.”

However, the budget statement was approved on March 19 by Parliament after a majority vote of 137 to 134.

Speaker Alban Bagbin also told the House that the Judiciary proposed a total budget estimate of ¢470,415,847.78, but “Government has recommended that the Judiciary should operate for the year 2021 within the ceiling of ¢437,397,064. I want to urge the Judiciary Committee to be guided by the recommendations of the President.”

The President in his controversial letter to Parliament stated:

“Accordingly, Parliament is respectfully requested to keep the estimates of Parliament and the Parliamentary Service within the expenditure ceiling as proposed by [the] government above to enable [us] contains expenditures within the overall fiscal space for 2021.”

Bagbin, however, commended the President in “ceding to the request to do the rightful thing and for conceding and accepting it is not just for Parliament but also for the Judiciary”.