The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta will not address Parliament later today [Thursday] as scheduled.
The Minister has about 16 questions to answer. Some of the questions included update on the utilization of COVID-19 funds.
But Citi News’ sources say the engagement has been postponed to a yet-to-be-decided date.
Citi News’ Parliamentary correspondent, Duke Mensah Opoku, says the postponement was upon the request of the minister, although the reason for the request is unclear.
“What we gather is that, the Minister of Finance made the request to postpone the engagement,” Mensah Opoku said.
Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin last week, said on the floor of the House that the Minister’s expected appearance will put all matters which have been of concern to legislators, especially on the minority side, to rest.
“We all know that on Thursday, the minister [of Finance] is coming here to answer 16 questions. Questions that are coming from members, and bother on national issues,” he said.
In March 2022, the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, called for definite instructions to the Minister of Finance over his failure to appear before Parliament to answer questions.
The Minister had been programmed to answer about ten questions on different subject matters at the time but did not show up to answer any of them.
Raising concerns on the floor of the House earlier, Muntaka said the Minister has consistently failed to honour Parliament’s invitation to answer questions, some of which have been pending for a long time.
“I find this to be very unacceptable because the Finance Minister can go around the country and do town hall meetings, yet he doesn’t want to come here to answer to the reps of the people. All the 13 questions have been outstanding for a very long time. Today we are told he is holding a press conference to address the country. My worry is that, if we keep accommodating his excuses, this question will never be answered. We should give a definite instruction to the Finance Minister to come and answer the questions,” he said.
