How Parliament Grilled Osafo Maafo (5)

  By Maxwell Ofori, Parliament House Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, Majority Leader – Mr Chairman, may I appeal to colleagues that when meet at the committee level, we should abide by the spirit of consensus, and it’s not nice to be throwing jibes here and it is not. And I thought that the question that was […]

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By Maxwell Ofori, Parliament House

Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, Majority Leader – Mr Chairman, may I appeal to colleagues that when meet at the committee level, we should abide by the spirit of consensus, and it’s not nice to be throwing jibes here and it is not. And I thought that the question that was being asked by my colleague, the Hon Sampson Ahi, is genuine, except to say that when he premised the question on the fact that there are certain ministries, and refer to Monitoring and Evaluation, there is no ministry like that. You can say that maybe there is a minister in charge. It does not necessarily mean that a ministry has been created. So if you could premise the question well, maybe the nominee could answer.

Chairman – Can the nominee clarify where his coordination is for the benefit of members and the questioner please?

Osafo Maafo – Mr Chairman, I think you got me right. I talked on several occasions about economic sector ministries coordinating the work of economic ministries. If there is a minister for coordination and evaluation, assuming we want to follow up on our one district one factory and somebody should follow and give report to the President, that will be different from my coordination of the economic ministries. So there is no crisscrossing.

Chairman – Now, would you want to continue (Chairman asks Ahi)? Please review your question so that the nominee will answer.

Sampson Ahi – Thank you very much Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, the Hon nominee told us that he’s been asked to coordinate the economic ministries. Now we have a minister of state in charge of planning, which is part of economic activities of the country, and I want to find out from the nominee, what will be the relationship between his role and that of the minister of state who is going to be in charge of monitoring and evaluation and planning. Is that not going to be a duplication of functions? Thank you Mr Chairman

Osafo Maafo – Thank you Mr Chairman. I think earlier on you came in… When you talk of planning, you talking about planning for the whole economy, not only the economic ministries. I will restrict myself in the coordination of economic ministries. We talking about planning, and the planning is only … which also defined in detail in the constitution. In fact, there many people who are arguing that planning is a super minister, because everybody takes his feed from it, and therefore, there will be no overlapping as far as I’m concerned. Evaluation and monitoring of what? Of projects which would be assigned to him by the President, and I think we wait till we get there. Thank you

Chairman – We will come back to my left. Hon Nitiwul.

Dominic Nitiwul – Mr Chairman, I will just congratulate the nominee, and for reasons obviously know to all Ghanaians, I recuse myself or ask permission not to ask a question for today. Thank you.

Yiley Chireh Joseph – Thank you Mr Chairman. My questions are very simple ones. The first one is what will be the relationship between his coordination of economic ministries and the economic management team that is headed by the President? Some people are worried that this seeming confusion about roles will be in itself a problem in managing your economy. What do you say about that?

Osafo Maafo – Thank you very much. In fact, the economic management team has met four times; the first three under the chairmanship of the President himself, and the next one under the chairmanship of the Vice President. And we defined our terms of reference very well. So far, there is no problem between the roles of the economic management team. I report to them in respect to finds, because as much as possible we want consensus. The economic management team has people who are not even ministers on it. It is not only internal, there are people we’ve invited from outside to serve on it, and we are looking at the totality of the economy and other important things like infrastructure and certain things. So I will say so far it is doing very well and there is no problem. (Haruna interjects)

Haruna – Chairman sorry Hon Yaw Osafo Maafo, just as a follow up. The economic management has met four times, who were the members of the EMT (Economic Management Team) and when did they meet? Can you just share we the committee who met as the economic management team?

Osafo Maafo – The first meeting was held the second day when we came to power, because the President was keen about us understanding our roles, and understanding the data that we should look for in managing the economy, and we invited them. The minister for agriculture, the minister for trade and industry, who were then the ministers-designate for trade and industry, myself, finance, the vice president and two other people from outside who were brought in by his excellency the president from his office to assist. And then later, we also brought in a third person also to assist, so it’s okay.

Chairman – Very well Hon Yieleh Chireh continue.

Yieleh Chireh – Mr Chairman, the way he has talked, I think it was a proposed management economy, not actually, because they are designating. But you see, let’s go back to his designation as senior minister, because the constitution says minster of state, and then the President adds you the portfolio. So, for me, I would’ve preferred you don’t precede the minister with senior, because we all know when you enter any office you ask for the senior person there, and having worked with the IMF and World Bank, he knows. When they say senior manager, it means somebody higher than the other managers, so, for me to say that you are the same and you don’t have higher power. The senior itself implies powers and authority higher than that, so if the President doesn’t want to create confusion with the constitution, we should be talking about minister of state for coordinating economic ministry.

Chairman – I don’t think there’s a question in it. Thank you for your opinion.

To be continued with MP for Krachi East, Djato Michael

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