The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has disclosed that about 700 cases referred to various committees in Parliament for investigations have not been acted upon by the designated committees.
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, and some Members of Parliament have over the period lamented the delay in the presentation of committee reports on matters of national interest to the plenary for consideration.
While raising concern about the delay by the Majority Caucus to expedite the composition of its members on the ad-hoc committee set up to probe matters relating to the stalled National Cathedral project, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa called on the Speaker to crack the whip on the leadership of such committees.
“We are either taking our constitutional mandate seriously or not. The people don’t elect us to come to this House to waste time and not attend to matters urgently and to derelict on our constitutional mandate, and so I think it is time to crack the whip.”
“The last time we were at a workshop, the clerk said there were about 700 referrals that have not been covered, and it doesn’t speak well of us.”
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Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has accused Dr Ayew Afriyie, the chairman of the Health Committee, of deliberately obstructing a parliamentary probe into the government’s COVID-19 expenditure.
Parliament’s Speaker, Alban Bagbin, assigned the Finance and Health Committees the task of promptly probing the utilization of COVID-19 funds.
This directive was issued in response to perceived irregularities in the handling of COVID-19 funds, as presented by the Finance Minister on Wednesday, June 22, 2022.
On Wednesday, February 21, the Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, voiced concerns on the Parliament floor, accusing the MP for Effiduase/Asokore of undermining the investigation.
“The chairman of the joint committee, Ayew Afriyie, has not called a meeting to sit on the matter. The ranking member cannot obviously call a meeting and it is only the chairman who can call the meeting. So we are sensing some form of sabotage.
“There was a sub-committee that the joint committee formed and developed a guideline, and submitted it to the joint committee, which it accepted and as we speak, this matter has been delayed for almost eight months, and we cannot continue like this.”
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