Appointments Committee fails to lay report on six nominees

The Appointments Committee has failed to lay its report on six Ministerial nominees.

This follows an objection raised by the Minority leader and ranking member of the committee, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson.

The report of the committee has been outstanding for more than 10 days after vetting the nominees leading to lamentations by Adansi Asokwa MP who is heading to the Trades ministry on the floor on Thursday.

Majority Chief Whip Frank Annoh-Dompreh prayed the house for the report to be laid.

But Ato Forson opposed the move stating he had not sighted the final report after his inputs into the draft one.

The objection however did not go down well with the vice Chairman of the committee and deputy majority leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin who explained there was an agreement with the front bench of the Minority for the report to be laid.

Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin then ruled the report should go back to the committee for approval by members before a presentation to the plenary.

Subsequently, Afenyo-Markin stated the hurdles had been cleared for the report to be laid. That, however, could not happen to mean the nominees will have to wait a while longer to know their fate especially given the directive by the leadership of NDC for its MPs to reject the nominees.

The speaker took the opportunity to reprimand the leadership of some committees for failing to produce reports on time.

He singled out the Constitution, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee which has failed to produce a report of the Anti-gay bill since last year for a mention. The former Nadowli-Kaleo MP warned of consequences if Committees fail to work as directed.