The Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, has accused the Minority in Parliament of chasing headlines instead of answers, after its members staged a walkout during a session with the Governor of the Bank of Ghana on Wednesday, July 15.
Speaking to the press after the incident, Mr. Ayariga said the Minority’s insistence that the meeting be open to the public went against how Parliament normally deals with independent constitutional institutions.
These engagements, he noted, are usually done in private under Committee of the Whole sittings. “Per our Standing Orders, specifically Order 266, committee meetings are public unless the committee decides otherwise. I told them to get the whole committee to agree to an open session. But you can’t force a committee to meet publicly if it hasn’t consented,” he explained.
He added that although the Minority pointed to a past instance where a BoG Governor addressed Parliament openly, they failed to get the Committee of the Whole to approve the same format before exiting the chamber.
Mr. Ayariga rejected claims that Governor Dr. Johnson Asiama was trying to dodge questions. He said the Governor came prepared with answers to Parliament’s queries and was ready to release the details to the media.
“If accountability was truly the goal, they would have stayed and questioned him. What they did shows they were chasing camera time, not information from the central bank boss,” he stated.
The Bawku Central MP also faulted the Minority for ignoring parliamentary rules, arguing that proceedings must follow the Standing Orders, not the demands of individual MPs.“If that is what you want, then you engage us, we deliberate, and we agree on the approach together,” he said.
Mr. Ayariga was reacting to the Minority’s protest against First Deputy Speaker Bernard Ahiafor’s decision to hold Dr. Asiama’s briefing in camera. The dispute led the Minority to pull out of the Committee of the Whole and abandon the session.
