Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, Michael Okyere Baafi
New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, Michael Okyere Baafi, has explained that the actions of the Minority Caucus, which contributed to the chaos during a sitting of the Appointments Committee, were in the interest of Ghana’s democracy.
Addressing an event in his constituency in a video shared by Citi FM, the MP said the actions of his caucus were to help correct the notion that politicians are hypocrites.
“There is too much hypocrisy in the system, and that is becoming a problem, and politicians have become somehow victims of hypocrisy. That is one thing I think you don’t know; people will think that politicians are fighting on TV. No, we are not fighting; we are protecting democracy. We were not fighting,” he said.
Confusion rocked Parliament’s Appointments Committee sitting on the night of Thursday, January 30, 2025, when members of the Minority and Majority caucuses clashed over the vetting of Mr. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Minister of Health-designate, and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, designated for Foreign Affairs.
The disagreement began after 11 p.m. when the vetting of the nominee for Transport, Mr. Joseph Bukari Nikpe, had been concluded. The ensuing confusion led to the destruction of properties in the committee room.
However, according to the MP for New Juaben South, his caucus acted to prevent the Majority from forcing through the vetting of some ministerial nominees to avoid scrutiny by the Minority.
“We were told by the conclave that we were going to vet only three people at the meeting. Then they said we should add one more, so we agreed on four. So when we entered the vetting room, we were going to vet four people; after vetting four, the chairman called our caucus head that let’s add one more, and he said okay, and we added one to be five.
“After the fifth one, they said, let’s add one more, and we said, okay, we will do that. Then, when we were about to finish the sixth one, we saw that they had paraded about six more ministers that we should vet them. It was around 10:30, very late, and because we were few, we had only seven members of the caucus there; the only way out was for us to leave.
Note, if we had left, people wouldn’t have known Okudzeto Ablakwa well because they were going to vet him that night, so all the questions we asked, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to ask him that question in the morning. So, the only way out was for us to stay and make the place ungovernable. Because if we exit, they will go ahead because they had a quorum, they had the numbers. So we had to stay and make sure that they don’t do it,” he stated.
He, however, apologised to his constituents while asking for their understanding of the actions of his caucus.
“So understand us; I apologise unreservedly,” he added.
GA
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