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Agyapa deal: ‘Conflicted’ Oppong Nkrumah trivialized debate in Parliament – Inusah Fuseini

Inusah Fuseini22 Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, the Member of Parliament for Tamale Central

Tue, 3 Nov 2020 Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, the Member of Parliament for Tamale Central believes that the revelations made by the Special Prosecutor on the Agyapa Royalties provide enough bases for the government and the country to consider amending parts of the constitutions that allow the president to draw the majority of his ministers from parliament.

Inusah Fuseini held in an Okay FM interview that it is high time the legislature is decoupled from the executive to enable it to perform its watchdog duties effectively.

He noted that during debates in the house on the controversial mineral deal, some lawmakers who hold ministerial positions could not do an honest assessment of the deal because they were conflicted.

He cited Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah as one of such persons whose sense of judgment as a parliamentarian was clouded by his position as Minister.

Alhaji Fuseini remarked that instead of Oppong Nkrumah to focus on deliberating the important issues, he trivialized it by referring to a colleague as ‘papa no”.

“Oppong Nkrumah trivialized the debate by introducing non-parliamentary words like 'papa no'. It’s a tragedy that the president has not implemented the constitutional amendment to reform the nature of our parliament. Because if he had gone ahead with the constitutional amendment, then, the majority of ministers would not be coming from parliament and then parliament would have the opportunity to hold the executive accountable”.

“At a time Kojo Oppong Nkrumah was speaking, he was speaking as an MP and member of the executive so he was conflicted. He couldn’t be criticizing the government of which he was part and then perform his duty as a member of parliament to the best of his ability. He couldn’t be doing that”, he said on Okay FM.

Inusah Fuseini in a separate interview stated the observations made by the Special Prosecutor vindicates the position by the Minority MPs.

He said that the Minority raised similar red flags with the deal but were ignored by the Speaker of Parliament.

“When I raised these concerns in parliament and the Speaker overruled me, I walked out of the chamber because we were engaged in constitutional illegality. In fact, Martin Amidu says there was no law. Well, I have been following this matter and I agree with Martin Amidu. I have seen the date that the President assented to the Bill and the day that the law was gazetted and that was way after the 14th of August 2020 so there is really a problem.”

Source: www.ghanaweb.com
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