Parliament: Joe Osei Owusu refuses to admit Motion to probe Covid-19 spending

A private Members’ motion in Parliament seeking to probe the utilization of the COVID-19 funds has been thrown out by the First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu after the motion was duly moved and seconded.

In his ruling, Mr. Osei Owusu submitted that, the motion ought not have been admitted in the first place by Speaker Bagbin, because the issue the motion was seeking to uncover could be handled a bi-partisan committee like the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), chaired by a Member of Parliament from the Minority Group.

But addressing the media to state their position over the ruling, the leader of the Minority Group, Harruna Iddrisu, expressed worry at the way with which the First Deputy Speaker’s ruling against the motion filled by some members of his side praying parliament to constitute a bi-partisan committee chaired by a member of the minority Caucus to investigate the 1.2billion cedis allocated to government in the management of Covid-19.

In a sharp response, the deputy majority Leader, Kwamena Afenyo Markin indicated that they were not against probing the government in anyway, however they felt the minority group were being overly partisan with the matter.

According to Mr. Markin, the constitution has made provisions for the Auditor-General to investigate such matters before, it is brought to the Public Account Committee to interrogate.

Below is the rejected motion:

That this Honourable House constitutes a bi-partisan parliamentary committee chaired by a Member of the Minority Caucus to enquire into the expenditures made by Ghana Government in relation to COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. (Mr. Haruna Iddrisu; Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka; Dr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson).

By Edzorna Francis Mensah