Former Deputy Minister for Defence, Kofi Amankwa-Manu, has refuted allegations made by former New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer hopeful Kennedy Agyapong that Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee was prevented from visiting and accessing the Afari Military Hospital during the previous administration.
According to Amankwa-Manu, the claim is inaccurate and does not reflect the realities surrounding parliamentary oversight activities at the time.
He insists that the Defence and Interior Committee, which had direct oversight responsibility over the Ministry of Defence, could not have been barred from accessing a facility under the ministry’s jurisdiction.
Speaking in an interview with TV3 Ghana, the former Deputy Defence Minister described the allegations as baseless and questioned the rationale behind such assertions.
“It cannot be true. It simply cannot be true. Because he was the chairman for the Defence and Interior Committee and the Defence and Interior Committee has oversight responsibility over the Ministry of Defence.
“If you want to go or come to Afari, on what basis would you be prevented? In the first place, the Committee on Health does not have oversight responsibility over the activities of the Ministry of Defence and yet when they put in the request to come and visit Afari, then Minister Dominic Nitiwul actually accompanied the Committee on Health to Afari.”
Amankwa-Manu’s comments come in response to recent remarks by Kennedy Agyapong, who alleged that the erstwhile administration of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo failed to make meaningful progress on the Afari Military Hospital project during its eight years in office.
Kennedy Agyapong further claimed that members of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee were denied access to the facility when they sought to inspect it.
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