Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed has alleged that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was the first party to have its lawmakers disobey the party over approval of ministerial nominees.
He explained that it is rare to point at a rejected ministerial nominee under the Fourth Republican Constitution, it was instructive to note that the NPP’s Members of Parliament in 2009 defied the party to pass a deputy finance and economic planning minister-designate.
The nominee happened to be a sitting MP for Ketu South at the time.
Fifi Fiavi Kwetey was the nominee, he is the current general secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“In this Fourth Republic, I don’t think we have ever had a minister rejected and I’d give you an example. And ironically and interestingly, our current national secretary in the 5th Parliament, NDC had 113 MPs. NPP had 108 MPs, so it was just a difference of five MPs.
“You remember Hon. Fifi’s approval, the NPP issued a statement, in fact a three-line whip that they should not approve Hon. Fifi. But at the end of the day, he got 117 votes. It means that four members of the NPP disregarded the whip live directive of their party and voted for him,” he recounted on Joy News programme PM Express (March 27).
He stressed that the incident of Friday, March 24, 2023 when NDC MPs defied the party’s orders to approve six ministerial nominees of president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was shameful and unjustifiable.
Stressing that a ‘false’ impression was being “created as if this is the first time this is happening.“
GhanaWeb factchecks Murtala's numbers
The NDC, after the 2008 elections, according to our checks had 116 MPs not 113 as the MP claimed. He got the 107 figure for the NPP correct.
It is worthy of note also that inthe then 230-seater Parliament, there were four independent MPs and one Convention People’s Party (CPP) MP.
It means then that only one NPP MP could have voted for Kwetey from the Minority side even if they indeed defied the party.
It could also be that the one MP was the CPP MP or one of the four independent MPs.
The difference in the case of the NDC’s vote on March 24 is that, there is overflowing evidence that at least over a dozen members voted for appointees of Akufo-Addo in a tensed vote which has since generated heavy backlash from supporters and members of the public.
Murtala was among a number of MPs who recorded their vote during the secret ballot that saw six Akufo-Addo ministerial nominees and two Supreme Court appointees approved by Parliament.
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Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, NDC General Secretary and former Ketu South MP