(JoyOnline) — Minority Leader, Alban Bagbin has asked for information from the public to assist Parliament scrutinise the president?s nominees for ministerial appointments.
He was speaking to Joy News ahead of Thursday?s vetting process by the Appointment committee.
Parliament is constitutionally required to give prior approval of all ministerial appointments by the president.
Most of the nominees served in president Kufuor?s first administration.
Mr Bagbin who is also a ranking member of the Appointments Committee said that would not guarantee them any advantage over the new ones.
?We know that some of them occupied the high office of minister?s of state and that some of them appeared before an Appointment Committee in Parliament in 2001 and therefore we have that as part of the guidance but after that they have performed in those offices and there is a record for us to examine so we are going to examine those records?, he said
?In fact even if we overlook some issues during the course of the first vetting, definitely we will not gloss over them, so if the public has any information on them, they should kindly make it available to us because we want to do a good job so that public trust is not taken for granted? Mr Bagbin said.
The Appointment Committee of Parliament will be meeting today, Tuesday 18, 2005 to draw up a timetable and adopt the appropriate procedure in vetting the nominees.
It is not clear yet whether the vetting will begin on Thursday as planned, following the declaration of the day as a public holiday in commemoration of the Moslem festival of Eidul-Adha.
The vice chairman of the Committee, Abraham Osei Aidoo, told Joy News that today?s meeting will decide whether or not the exercise will commence on Thursday.
He also spoke about the procedure to be adopted for the vetting process.
Mr Osei Aidoo said the committee has not yet decided on which procedures to use in the vetting process, saying, ? We have not decided on what to do but we will try and see whether we should have a common approach or a different approach for the two categories ?.
He noted that it was possible that the committee might adopt different approaches as well as decide on a common formula for all of them.
Source: GhanaWeb
