This Question: So Why Did the Minority Approve Ken Ofori Atta

1. It is important to note that those who support the NPP never had a problem with Ken Ofori Atta being Minister for Finance between 2017 and 2020. They never would have had a problem with him even when the NDC side raised issues about him.
2. It is also important to state that at the vetting of Mr. Ken Ofori Atta, efforts were made to ask him critical questions by the likes of the Hon. Alhassan Suhuyini, and I am sure many thought he was engaged in a needless exercise on a matter that bothered on his fidelity to the business community in Ghana becoming a finance minister who chose tax havens to invest in.
3. Again, it is important to point out that the Minority did not nominate Ken Ofori Atta to take office as Finance Minister. Indeed, the person who saw him fit was President Akufo-Addo and he must take responsibility for his actions and inactions.
4. It must also be pointed out clearly that there is no doubt that the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, has fully endorsed Mr. Ofori Atta’s management of our finances. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be pleading for his stay to complete his unfinished business when even majority of members of the Majority side of Parliament have demanded for his sack. The President, if he had issues with the manner Ken Ofori Atta was managing this country, would have sent him out of his government. So this point must be clearly stated.
5. For those who keep asking these questions, especially those who are sympathetic to the NPP, the question they must first answer is, did they have any issues with the Finance Minister up until 2020? Would they have had any issues with him in 2021 even at the time he was nominated for approval by Parliament?
6. It needs stated that the NDC as far back 2017, sent the warning signals of the trajectory of our finances immediately the Ken Bond saga became public. They raised concerns on the dangers that our economy was being exposed to with such dealings. How many of you believed that the Minority was right?
7. Even leading up to his approval again in 2021, how many of you believed that the Minority was not doing the usual politics when they kicked against his approval? Many of you would have gone like, why is the Minority trying to sabotage government? This is because many of you have no access to the data that informed the warnings.
8. This was a man who kept under-reporting our debt situation, a matter that Hon. Isaac Adongo and Ato Forson have drummed home. You pretended you didn’t hear, and acted like the Finance Minister was being unnecessarily targeted. I am sure many of you even had sympathies for him when he appeared before the Motion of Censure Committee of Parliament to appeal to your emotions.
9. Many of you, wanted to live the reality before taking different stance. Unfortunately, the reality doesn’t afford us the luxury of comfort that we would need. It hit us badly without discrimination.
10. Unfortunately, even the very man who got the mandate and assembled all these ‘men’ including Ken Ofori Atta, you were warned against him. His former close associates have come out to warn against making him President. Indeed, we were told he would be the worst President if elected one. Yet, many of you still went ahead and elected him because you thought those people were wrong.
11. His reality in decision making has dawned on us when we ‘least’ expected (though those who warned expected it) and we are here.
12. The Minority wouldn’t have made sense to you at all just as those who warned against making Nana Addo the President never made sense to you. Even when he announced that there would be no haircuts, you believed him even after the Minority Leader came out to say there would be a haircut. It was not until the recent efforts to hide it, that we are waking up to the fact that the Minority Leader was after all right.
13. Even when the Hon. Forson in September told us that there would be a haircut that would hit everyone whether they have hair or not, how many believed him?
14. Everything points to the fact that we wanted to live the realities under those we were warned against before we learn lessons. Unfortunately, the lessons have come too hard and these lessons have exempted no one.The Minority can only do what they did. If you had added your voice, we wouldn’t be here.

By Stephen Kwabena Attuh (ASK)