A former member of Parliament for Okaikoi North, Fuseini Issah, has expressed his disappointment over Parliament setting up a committee to probe the collapse of UT Bank and Uni Bank.
According to him, there has been a precedent into an inquiry of the Central Bank before parliament. This, he noted, happened when he was a member of the finance committee. He explained that, the matter was subsequently taken up by the courts.
In lieu of this, Mr. Issah maintained that, Parliament’s probe in the matter is unnecessary.
His comments follow the committee’s directive for the two petitioners to submit all necessary document to support their petition.
“I must say that I was really shocked that the Speaker actually admitted the petition and went on to allow Honourable Ayariga to move a motion to the extent of setting up a committee.
“We had some hearing. I recollect some of the proceedings that ensued when we met the Bank. Then, just as Parliament was proceeding with that process, legal matters started off in the court. So, we had to decide whether we were going to look at this situation. The end decision was that, if the courts are taking up these issues, why will Parliament as an institution also want to conduct its independent investigations into the matter?
“What if at the end of the day the courts ruling is not in abeyance with what Parliament finishes with? Can you imagine the situation that we are going to have?”
Parallel system in probing collapse of banks
Additionally, Mr. Issah revealed that, the petitioners who brought forth the case “through Honourable Ayariga are in court”. As such, “why would Parliament want to set up a parallel system to look into the same situation?”
In spite of his disagreement with the parliamentary probe of the issue, Mr. Issah noted that the “composition of the committee” gives him “some comfort”.
“I disagree with the Speaker but the Speaker has set up a committee. The committee is going to sit… I am also not worried that the committee is asking for documents. They will peruse whatever document, but at the end of the day, the committee is going to come with the report to plenary”.
Commenting on whether the probe might cause a rift between the judiciary and the Parliament, Mr Issah explained that their independence would not allow that.
“I think that the two arms of the government are independent. But we are not independent to the extent that we should go head-to-head, I don’t think so. To me, this is very unnecessary and Parliament shouldn’t have gotten to this extent”.
Submit necessary document
Chairman of the nine-member committee tasked to probe the collapse of Unibank and UT Bank has directed the petitioners to submit all necessary documents to support their petition.
According to Mr. Joseph Osei-Owusu, the committee is yet to receive the said document from the two petitioners.
“The committee met last week and after reading the petition, we decided to call on the petitioners to bring to us all the documents on which they based their petition and request so that the committee will review them and then guide us on the way forward. We have not as yet received them”.
He explained that the committee is expected to meet in a couple of weeks to peruse the documents to be submitted by the petitioners.
“I think we agreed that we will reconvene in two weeks because we are allowing them a week to submit and one week for us to study the documents, and then we start our work”.
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