The Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Kojo Pumpuni Asante, has claimed that the censure motion procedure has been overjudicialised.
He claimed the Parliamentary processes that must lead to the removal of a Minister of State is not what is being followed because Parliament has been turned into a court room.
“What I am finding a problem with is the overjudicialisation of this process. We’ve turned it into a court room where people are leading evidence and so on.”
Pumpuni Asante , CDD-Ghana
He mentioned that, the Parliamentary processes for removing a Minister are simple and not as quasi-judicial like what is happening in the censure motion hearings.
Using the United State of America (USA) as an example, Pumpuni Asante claimed the process there is purely Parliamentary such that like this, “every member of Parliament can participate in non-technical debates.”
According to him, in the USA, all that is done is “the establishment of facts” then immediately, a decision is taken on whether to impeach or not to impeach the Minister.
He noted that the quasi-judicial shape the censure motion hearing has taken may be because Parliament has powers akin to that of High Courts in Ghana. He however advised Parliament “to pull away from that.”
“I think Parliament should look seriously because when you do that [make the hearings quasi-judicial], you completely take away the role that Parliament has to play. Then, you get into very strait technicalities about establishing evidence… Really, Parliaments don’t do that even though [it] has powers of High Courts.”
Pumpuni Asante, CDD-Ghana
Regardless of his displeasure with the ongoing process, Pumpuni Asante said that Parliament could not be blamed for complicating a process that otherwise should have been a simple one.
He noted that misunderstandings on the appropraite procedures to follow was always bound to happen because, in Ghana’s democratic history, the censure motion against Ofori-Atta is the first of its kind.
“I do recognise that this is a rare thing in our democracy. For 30years in our democracy, this is the first time we are having a censure motion and we’re going to learn a lot from it even in terms of the procedure.”
Pumpuni Asante, CDD-Ghana
Day 1 of Censure Motion Hearing
Yesterday, November 15, 2022, at exactly 11am, the 8-member adhoc committee formed by Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, held its first sitting.
The agenda for yesterday’s meeting was to hear from the proponents of the motion on their basis for passing the motion against the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
The committee which is co-chaired by Adansi Asokwa MP, Hon. KT Hammond and Bolgatanga East MP, Dr. Dominic Ayine, questioned the representatives of the proponents, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu and Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, on the allegations they laid against the Minister.
For the benefit of doubts, the proponents who are the MPs in the minority group in Parliament, have accused the Minister of Finance of committing seven (7) offences.
The offences are: conflict of interest, unconstitutional withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund, illegal payment of oil revenues into offshore accounts, deliberate and dishonest misreporting of economic data to Parliament, fiscal recklessness, alarming incompetence and gross mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy.
While the representatives of the proponents were naming the documents that supports their allegations, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu said they were going to lead evidence that supports their claims that the Minister of Finance has mismanaged Ghana’s economy.
Meanwhile, even though the Minister of Finance himself was at the committee’s hearing, he never spoke during the process. However, intermittently, the Minister’s Lawyer, Mr. Gabby Otchere-Darko was given oppourtuties to speak on the Minister’s behalf.
It must be noted that the Speaker of Parliament said on the floor of Parliament that, the Minister of Finance was entitled to a fair hearing and could be represented by his Lawyers at the committee sittings.
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