We should not encourage the executive to take Parliament for granted - Haruna Iddrisu

Haruna Iddrisu, the Ranking Member on the Appointments Committee of Parliament, has said that Parliament should not allow itself to be 'controlled' unnecessarily by the Executive.

He said that while the powers of the Executive are distinct, its execution should be done within the law, and not in an attempt to undermine the authority of the legislature.

The Member of Parliament for Tamale South made this known when he raised a preliminary objection during the vetting of the minister-designate for Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe, on the grounds that the creation of the said ministry was not in line with statutes.

This objection, on the day, sent the vetting process into an unplanned recess, in an attempt to get clarity from the presidency on what the next step should be since he believed that the vetting without those assurances from the executive will amount to some illegality.

“And Chairman, I have also in my hand here, Executive Instrument, EI Civil Service Instrument of 2021 and it lists ministries of the service and it ends at Ministry of Youth and Sports. Conspicuously lost in the EI is the Ministry for Public Enterprises, as I indicated in 29 of the president’s list.

“If we do proceed to vet the honorable Cudjoe, are we vetting him as minister, minister-of-state, minister heading a secretariat, because within the meaning of EI 12, there is no ministry of Public Enterprises. I know there was some letter from the Office of the President on some of these issues so Mr. Chairman, I am demanding for clarity: what are we seeking to do? Are we considering the honorable Joseph Cudjoe for a non-existing ministry which is not a creation of law, or a creation of statute, or we are just considering him," he said.

In expanding his observation, he explained that all he wanted to do was to ensure that their vetting of their colleague was in line with the very Executive Instrument (EI) that came from the president's office.

“Chairman, I am not in any way questioning the authority of the president under Article 78 to appoint such number of ministers as he deems fit and desirable but by the letter dated 21 January, 2021, it’s listed, Central Government, Ministry then Name indicated. At 29, is Public Enterprises, so it’s presumed that there will be a Ministry of Public Enterprises.

“I will come to the duplicity of it at a personal level. I will not support a Ministry of Public Enterprises because every ministry is a public enterprise of a sort, or, is engaged in a public enterprise of a sort but if the president is appointing him as a Minister-of-State to be responsible for maybe, as I said… there are many agencies under the presidency that normally the president will refer to a minister to supervise like MiDA, like Ghana AIDS Commission, there are many of it. But I’m saying that if we proceed further with the scrutiny of our colleague; his confirmation, are we doing so within the correspondence from the president, which is not sitting with EI 12 – the Executive Instrument, to which he has exercised his power and mandate.

“You know, we should not encourage the Executive to just take Parliament for granted. Yes, it’s your power to do but do so within the law. So the Ministry of Public Enterprises, is not a creation of statute and is not recognized by EI 12," he stated.