Chairman of Parliament’s Appointments Committee, Bernard Ahiafor, has criticised Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin for what he describes as an inability to adjust to his new role in opposition.
Speaking on Accra-based Joy News, Mr Ahiafor revealed that although he maintains a cordial working relationship with the Effutu MP who’s also the Ranking Member of the Appointments Committee, his posturing often makes collaboration challenging.
“I have a very good relationship with him, but sometimes I find it very difficult to take the excess. I am one particular person who will not agree on one thing with you, and after a few minutes or a few hours, you behave as if that was not what we had agreed upon. It pisses me off.”
His comments come in the wake of escalating tensions between the Minority leadership and the Clerk of the Appointments Committee, Gifty Jiagge-Gobah. Afenyo-Markin and his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), have accused the Clerk of partisanship and bias, claims that have disrupted recent vetting proceedings.
Ahiafor, who is also the MP for Akatsi South, dismissed these allegations, asserting that the Clerk operates transparently and fairly.
“There is nothing that the Clerk of the Committee has put out there that we have not agreed upon,” Mr Ahiafor stated.
“There is no occasion that the Clerk will not give me and the Minority Leader a draft report. Even if you go back to recap, there are instances where the two of us will be sitting down there, and the Clerk will hold two reports and give me one, give him one in full glare of the camera. So I don’t know why he is alleging that he’s not been given reports.”
Ahiafor suggested that Afenyo-Markin’s confrontational stance stems from his previous role as Majority Leader, which has made it difficult for him to adapt to the dynamics of opposition leadership.
“It’s about time he realises that he is no longer Majority Leader, but he’s a Minority Leader. He can use any adjectives to describe himself—mighty and happy Minority—but for me, he is a Minority Leader,” Mr Ahiafor argued.
He further explained that parliamentary procedures dictate that Clerks take instructions from Committee Chairpersons, not Ranking Members—a fact Afenyo-Markin seems unwilling to accept.
“It doesn’t look like he’s the only one that is that way. Majority Leaders and Chairmen of Committees give information and take decisions from the Clerk, but by our practice, Clerks of Committees don’t take decisions from the Ranking Member.”
“They take decisions from the Chairman of the Committee. That is why their letters mostly read, ‘I have been directed by the Chairman of the Committee,’ not the Ranking Member,” he clarified.
“Because he’s coming from the Majority point of view, sometimes I believe he forgets himself and doesn’t come to the realisation that he is operating from a Minority point of view,” he noted.
By: Ekow Annan/newsalertgh.com
