The Minister for Communications and Digital Innovations Samuel Nartey George and his team from the various agencies under him, on Monday November 3 appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
They were there to answer questions for infractions that occurred in the Auditor General’s report for the year 2024.
But it looks like the Minister had his own agenda to do the chairperson of the Committee Abena Osei Asare what some appointees of President John Mahama, have all this while failed to do apparently due to the respect they have for the seat she occupies.
Recall the recent drama clash between the chairperson and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Driver and Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA), Julius Neequaye Kotey, who also appeared before the Committee as an agency under the Ministry of Transport.
Though on a light note, the encounter between the Minister and the Atiwa East Member of Parliament (MP) has sparked massive reactions on the internet with many commending Sam George for boldly speaking truth to the former Minister of State at the Finance Ministry.
The while drama unfolded when Osei Asare who was a former deputy minister under embattled former Minister Ken Ofori-Atta for 7 years, inquired about the dwindling fortunes of the Ghana Post Limited. The chairperson was unenthused about the infractions by the institution in the year under review.
But Sam George rebutted strongly blaming the situation on the mismanagement of the previous government and the handling of the Cedi. The outspoken Minister without mincing words put the blame squarely on the former Minister of state and her boss as well as the former vice president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
“Mr Chairman, the answer is simple and in one word the mismanagement of the economy by the Akufo-Addo administration. You see Ghana Post pays a lot of airlines for the transport of the parcels we send to Europe and the United States and we pay that in dollars. So when you saw the mismanagement when Ken Ofori-Atta, Abena and co were at the Finance Ministry and Dr Bawumia the head of the Economic Management Team you then saw…..”, he said amidst laughter.
The chair who felt done in swiftly interrupted urging her colleague in Parliament from the Ningo Prampram constituency to calm down and leave out the name calling.
“Respectfully minister, stop it right there. Just go straight to your question and answer and don’t be name calling you understand? Minister please answer the question oh when this was there this was there oh Minister, I don’t think that is how we should go. You have been here before, I have been where you are before let’s just go straight to the point”, she said.
The Minister who had at the time clearly made his point responded “I am guided Mr Chairman”. Many on social media have sided with Sam George for being bold and telling his colleague what she needed to be told.
Many have over the period wondered why the chair in the first place occupy the seat when the report details what happened when she was in government.
They have protested that, the status quo where opposition member leads the Committee should be changed so long as the report is about the previous government that is being assessed. One prominent person who has made this argument forcefully is the MP for the Gomoa Central constituency, Kwame Asare Obeng alias A Plus.
He in a post over the weekend blasted the Atiwa East MP for posing as a clean lawmaker when under her, the economy was ran down and there are allegations of corruption and naked thievery by appointees of Akufo-Addo.
“How can any serious nation permit this individual to question appointees of President John Dramani Mahama, who have been in office for less than a year, when she and her superior spent nearly a decade deliberately driving this country towards chaos?
This same woman, not too long ago was seen on live television passionately defending the then Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Rev, Amisshaddai Owusu-Amoah, for refusing to disclose her age. Under the regime she served, Ghana has been engulfed in numerous contentious contracts that are now being scrutinized by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP)”, he said in a long post on Facebook.
By Gifty Boateng