The Member of Parliament of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the Nabdam Constituency, Dr. Mark Kurt Nawani has described the outcome of the voting to approve the newly appointed ministers in Parliament on Friday 22nd March, 2023 as the darkest day of his parliamentary career.
Despite a communique from the national executives of the party to the minority members of Parliament not to approve the new ministers , over thirty of the NDC ministers defied the party directive and voted to approve all the six ministers appointed by President Akufo Addo to replace ministers who had resigned to pursue their political ambitions and on health grounds.
One of the ministers whose approval shocked many Ghanaians was the Minister of finance at the presidency, Mr. Bryan Acheampong, who has been accused by many NDC MPs and supporters of masterminding the Ayawaso By-election violence where the Ningo Prampram MP, Hon. Samuel Nartey George was physically abused by members of the SWAT team of the Ghana Police Service. He pulled 169 Yes votes as against 98 No votes.
Reacting to the turn of events in an interview with Mr. Simon Agana Blessing on the Wednesday edition of the Word Community Watch Show on Word FM, Dr. Nawani said he was taken aback with the outcome of the results, describing it as the darkest day in his parliamentary career.
” That Friday, I will say was the darkest moment of my parliamentary career. When we got there on Friday and with that outcome, I don’t understand. Me i don’t know if i am the only stranger in Jerusalem because i don’t understand why what happened happened at the end of the voting . It wasn’t one or two people but thirty and more. I don’t understand.
He explained that the decision not to approve the new ministers was a collective decision of the minority NDC MPs that was communicated to the leadership of the party and same was agreed upon by the MPs and the leadership not to approve the new ministers to hold the Akufo Addo government political hostage to force him to reduce the number of his ministers.
” Let me correct something. It wasn’t the party that told us not to approve the ministers ooo. We the minority members of Parliament before the vetting had agreed that after the vetting of the ministers we would not approve them because we wanted to use that to act as a chip to force the president to reduce the size of government where the president has appointed many ministers and deputy minister and certain appointees at the Jubilee House which is just job for the boys. And in all these discussions, we all agreed and were united. No one came out to speak against it .”
The two term Member of Parliament has rendered an unqualified apology to members of the NDC and Ghanaians for the unfortunate turn of events on Friday.
” I will tell the NDC members we are sorry, i will tell Ghanaians that we are sorry. The only thing that we can do now is to apologise.”
He has therefore called on the over thirty MPs who went contrary to the collective decision of the party to own up and explain why they did what they did.”
This is the second time that members of the minority NDC has angered their people with the outcome of voting decisions after similar incident happened in early 2021 when some members of the minority voted to confirm the appointment of some ministers including Kojo Opong Nkrumah and Hawa Koomson.
By: Simon Agana Blessing/mywordfmonline.com