Parliament Approves Two Deputy Ministers

Parliament Friday approved the nominations of Mr Anthony Gyambiby and Mr Kwadwo Owusu-Agyeman as the Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and Deputy Minister for the Interior respectively.

The House delayed the approval of the two on Thursday due the change of mind by some Members of the Appointments Committee of Parliament on the floor of the House.

That was after the committee had recommended the two to the House for approval by consensus.

After a heated debate, the First Deputy Speaker, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho had to postpone the approval of the nominations of the two deputy ministers-designate ruling that a secret balloting exercise should be conducted for their approval.

But during today’s sitting, Mr Adjaho changed his ruling and rather used voice votes to approve the nominations of the two without any protest from members of the House.

During the debate on the report of the Appointments Committee on Thursday, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, NPP MP for Sekondi described Mr Gyambiby as “an astute prosecutor”, who would be useful to the NDC administration.

He said he was, however saddened by the performance of Mr Owusu-Agyeman grading him 40 per cent.

“At this injury time, if anybody is being brought into the President’s team, he should be someone who will bring an extraordinary skill on board. I am surprised that the Appointments Committee recommended his nomination for approval by consensus”.

Members who opposed the nomination of Mr Owusu-Agyeman based their arguments on the several errors and inaccuracies in the curriculum vitae (CV) he submitted to the committee.

At the public sitting of the Appointments Committee, the nominee, for instance admitted that he did not complete his Masters Degree (MSc) course and therefore did not hold that certificate as erroneously included in the CV.

The committee requested him to clean his CV and resubmit it .

The PNC MP for Sissala West, Mr Haruna Bayirga also a member of the Appointments Committee, also expressed his strong reservation against the approval of Mr Owusu-Agyeman explaining that there was no need to shield the nominee since he had a lot of shortfalls.

“The shortfalls of the nominee should be told and he should not be allowed to go through because he was nominated by the President”, he said adding that “it will be difficult for me to approve his nomination.