The changing face of the vetting process in Parliament
The first round of the vetting of ministerial nominees which began on January 24, this year, ended last Thursday with 37 appointees of the President appearing before the Appointments Committee of Parliament within the period.
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While some distinguished themselves and laid bare concrete policies they hope to implement to assist in the country’s march towards development, others were not too impressive.
Throughout the process, the Chairman of the committee, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, intervened several times to ask nominees not to answer questions posed to them by the members.
He also disallowed some questions which, in his opinion, would lead to the nominees opening a can of worms and either put the country's security issues in the public domain or embarrass the government.
While the chairman's intervention in some cases could be said to be justified, others were simply put, “unpardonable."
For example, Mr Barton-Odro's barring of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, from answering questions bordering on the alleged illegal payments to businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, could be understood because it was before the law court.
But it would be difficult for him to justify why he stopped the nominee for the Upper West Region, Mr Bede Ziedeng, from answering questions on his resignation from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), his declaration of support for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and his subsequent return to the party after others had worked hard to bring it back to power.
The members had sought to ask Mr Ziedeng to justify that action but to the utter surprise of many, the chairman stopped the move.
As a result, Mr Ziedeng had a smooth ride whereas in other democracies, he would not even be qualified to appear in the name of the party he had demonised and campaigned against.
There are many other instances where he offered ‘unnecessary protection’ to nominees, inadvertently leaving observers with doubts about the capabilities of some of them.
However, when Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo, the nominee for the Greater Accra Region appeared, the chairman allowed the bombardments, a situation which made the nominee- popularly called Lion- to eat humble pie and come to the realisation that in politics, one should not make "loose statements” that cannot be justified later on in life.
Perhaps, what can be considered the biggest flaw of the entire process was the trooping of relatives, friends, supporters, sympathisers of the nominees and traditional rulers into the Speaker's Conference Room, where the vetting was held.
The premises of Parliament was invaded by drummers, brass bands, cultural troupes, Asafo companies and traditional warriors.
The level of irritating noisemaking and fanfare reduced the entire process to a festival at a village square.
There was so much noise in the room that one had to pay utmost attention to hear what either the nominee or a member of the committee was saying.
Due to the large number of people in the room at each vetting, the place got stuffy and crowded and journalists sometimes had no place to sit.
The Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mr Mahama Ayariga, someone who is expected to seek the interest of the media, on one occasion, asked a media person to vacate his seat for a chief he claimed was from the Upper West Region to sit down.
The moving of the venue from the Speaker's Conference Room to one of the committee rooms of the New Office Complex, made matters more challenging.
The room, which is far bigger than the old venue, accommodated more people and people who had no business there trooped in while making noise and sometimes ignored the chairman's orders not to applaud the nominees when they spoke.
There were running battles between the police and the supporters and family members several times with the police, almost all the time, overwhelmed by the number of people.
As for the media, the move to the new hall was the final nail in the coffin of their problems, because no place was set aside for them to sit. Media personnel had to stand for hours through the process and if any media person was lucky enough to get a seat, he or she was made to vacate it for a chief or family member of a nominee. It was as if they were more entitled to the room than the journalist.
It is also not good enough for chairman to read out names of supporters which he cleverly calls "acknowledgements".
In those acknowledgements, he recognised the presence of chiefs, spouses, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, party chairmen and secretaries, schoolmates and neighbours. The only people he never acknowledged was the enemies of nominees, and that probably was because they were never present.
If Parliament does not manage the numbers that turn up at the vetting process sooner than later, the growing number of supporters will take the shine away from the essence of the public hearing.
Story by Mark-Anthony Vinorkor