Former Member of Parliament for Buem, Daniel Kwesi Ashiamah, has bought into the suggestions calling for a ceiling on the time allotted to the Ranking Member on the Appointments Committee.
In his opinion, the Chairman and the Ranking Member should be given a time limit or a restricted number of questions to ask.
The Ranking Member on the Committee was given an unlimited amount of time to ask as many questions as they wanted, which prompted some members of the public to voice their concerns.
The Minority Leader and Ranking Member on the Appointments Committee, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, questioned each nominee for more than three hours during the Ministers-designate vetting process.
Many questions were raised regarding the time allotted to the Ranking Members after the lengthy hours spent on one of the nominees caused a stir when it came time to vet the other nominees.
Daniel Kwesi Ashiamah stated that the Ranking Member’s unrestricted access to ask as many questions as he wants was granted for a purpose, but it is currently being misused, which is why he supports those who want to remove that privilege.
“Most likely, the rationality of the Ranking Members of the Committee served as the foundation for this practice and convention when it was first proposed. However, since we’ve discovered that this rule is being misused, we need to reconsider it and prohibit either the quantity of questions you can ask or the number of hours you can work,”Daniel Kwesi Ashiamah told Kwaku Owusu Adjei Adwenekasa on Accra-based Original TV.
He went on to say that restricting the questions or imposing a time limit will encourage people to ask pertinent questions rather than squandering time on inquiries whose responses could be confirmed by the nominee’s submitted documents.
“I think some pointless questions wouldn’t have been raised if we had done it that way. To assess the nominee’s understanding of the policies pertaining to the designated ministry, you will immediately move on to the policy issues. You won’t spend a lot of time reviewing the nominee’s resume,”Daniel Kwesi Ashiamah added.
