Did Kojo Oppong Nkrumah bribe some MPs over his Parliamentary Approval?

Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ofoase Ayirebi constituency and the Newly approved Minister-designate for information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has admitted to “engaging” colleague MPs ahead of the voting among MPs that resorted to his parliamentary approval.

Though it is not clear what he meant by “engaging”, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah is enthused that his engagement in the form it took has produced the expected result for him.

He said because he knew anything could have happened in the process he took the moment seriously and like he would do in any election broke his back to ensure victory.

Oppong Nkrumah stated this in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen political talk program on Thursday where he described the outcome of the voting in Parliament as surprising. He garnered 156 votes out of 275.

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“I didn’t have to be complacent so I engaged as many MPs as I could and campaigned rigorously because I didn’t want any Indian film experience.

“Though I had my own target, I did not expect the numbers I had,” he stated.

In the early hours of Thursday, March 3, 2021, Parliament, by concensus approved the nomination of 10 ministerial nominees while 3 were approved by consensus.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, minister-designate for Information, Hawa Koomson, minister-designate for Fisheries and Aquaculture and Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, minister-designate for Food and Agriculture, were the three who were earlier rejected and later approved.

After hours of sitting, on Wednesday afternoon through to Thursday dawn, Parliament approved all 13 ministerial nominees in the Appointments Committee’s report.

The prolonged sitting was partly due to a debate from both sides of the House over the clarity in what was meant by a ‘majority decision’ as captured in the report recommending the approval of three of the 13 ministers-designate.

After unfavourable attempts to use a headcount, Speaker Alban Bagbin resorted to the use of a secret ballot to decide whether the nominees should be approved or not.

SOURCE: GhanaNewsOnline.com.gh