Mahama Ayariga, a member of the Appointments Committee has described the absence of the Minority on Friday’s vetting as not tied to “boycotting”.

According to him, the Minority’s during the vetting of Deputy Local Government Minister-designate, Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah and some others was not intentional.

He further revealed that the NDC MPs were acting on the instruction of the Speaker in participating in the tree planting exercise in their various constituencies.

“The absence of the Minority on Friday was not specific to boycotting a particular individual. It was general. It was something that the minority thought the entire committee had an understanding that based on the directive of the Speaker that we should all endeavour to participate in tree planting.

“…. So, the minority members of the appointment committee felt that it was wrong for the committee to proceed to sit on the day that they were supposed to plant trees”.

Mahama Ayariga’s comment follows the Chairman of Parliament’s Appointment Committee, Joseph Osei Owusu’s rejection of claims that their boycotting was in conformity to the Speaker’s directive.

Parliament’s recess versus Appointment committee

Additionally, Mr Ayariga revealed that it was vital that the minority MPs support government’s project to recover the forest’s cover. He further revealed that although parliament went on recess, the Appointment committee went through with the vetting process.

“So, it’s not a question of whether or not the tree planting will affect the sitting of the Appointments Committee. It is an indication that all of us as a country including members of the Appointments Committee are willing to throw our weight behind such an important environmental matter such as restoring our forest and planting more trees to achieve that objective.

“So, it’s not a question of the tree planting affecting the Appointments Committee, it is that the conduct of the Appointments Committee is inconsistent with this national call for everybody to endeavour to support the tree planting exercise.

“It is as if everything else is not important, but approving these nominees is the most important relative to restoring our forest vegetation. That’s the principle, it’s not [that] we are saying that the tree planting was going to affect the Appointments Committee”.

Speaker’s directive, inconsequential

Commenting on this, Mr. Osei Owusu explained that directive by the Speaker did not affect the committee’s work.

“First, if you look at the programme for the vetting of the deputy ministers, we identified each day what we will do. It is true that on Friday, the Ranking Member told me that Mr Speaker has said we should go out and do tree planting so parliament will not sit on Friday.

“As soon after that, the Minority leader came in and I asked him of that because parliament had then not been convened; so it appeared it is a pre sitting meeting. The minority leader said no, the Appointments Committee is not part, we should continue with our work; that was in the person of the Ranking Member who’s the majority leader.

Additionally, he noted that at the close of work on Friday, members of the committee actually met to discuss whether to continue with “our programme or whether we will reschedule the meeting on Friday”.

“We were unanimous that we will continue with our meeting. I am learning today that after we had concluded and left, members of the minority went out for another meeting of theirs and they sent somebody to communicate to me that we should postpone the meeting”.