The Minority cannot be vindicated over Agyapa, they lied - Majority Leader

The Majority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has taken the Minority to the cleaners over their claim that they have been vindicated for staging a walkout over the Agyapa Royalties deal.

The Minority, he said, has not been sincere to Ghanaians because they had access to the document on the deal a week before it was approved as compared to their position of having it only four hours to the deal.

The Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu has said they will not support modification of the Agyapa deal if the Finance Minister returns to Parliament with it.

He has called for the deal to be scrapped entirely because it is not in the interest of Ghanaians.

“Just ten of the mineral mining companies make significant contributions to our total revenue. Parliament cannot remedy the defects so identified by the Special Prosecutor.”

“How is Parliament going to cure nepotism and cronyism? How is Parliament going to cure that you painted a chief executive without due process? How is Parliament going to cure that you passed a resolution on a non-existing law?

“You don’t build a house on nothing, it was built on nothing. How is Parliament going to cure that a motion is moved, and the motion is amended at the very time it was to be adopted to make room to wait for a president to accent to a bill so passed by Parliament?” he asked.

“We feel strongly vindicated. The truth must always stand with the political minority at all times. Ghanaians will now understand why momentarily I lost my cool and temperament. For an important national matter for this character and nature, you find a minister of state trivialize it with ‘papa no’ at that time, not concerned about the weight and magnitude of this particular transaction.

“You want to take gold revenue for the next 10-15 years what does that mean to the state, what does it mean to the chiefs and people who earn a portion of the Mineral Development Fund. Government ministers were joking and reduced that transaction to a trip fall.

“But we don’t support it today, we don’t support it tomorrow. We don’t support it into the future. Parliament cannot correct any of the defined defects.”

Reacting to this, the Majority Leader said the Minority’s claim of vindication holds no water and is not justified.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said Mr Haruna Iddrisu was given at least two days to study the Agyapa Royalties contract hence his claims that they were given only hours is false.

”The Minority knew between them and their God that their claims are false. There was no vindication and whatever they did was a ruse, just populist, and baseless”.

Meanwhile, he has admitted that Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah was technically right in stating that the chapter on Agyapa was closed and could not be reviewed by parliament.

The Chairman of the Finance Committee Dt. Assibey-Yeboah has in an interview noted that it will take more than a directive from President Akufo-Addo for Parliament to review the Agyapa Royalties deal.

He explained to Accra based Joy News that the House can only reconsider the deal if the President “has the intention of resubmitting some additional information” for review and not base his instruction on the Corruption Risk Assessment put together by Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu.

The Majority Leader supported his explanation adding the chapter on the deal is closed.

He concluded by saying it would take a repeal of the old deal for a new law to approved ”and so technically, if Dr Assibey-Yeboah says the chapter is closed, it is closed.”