How Hawa Koomson’s drama-filled vetting came back to haunt her
Minister-nominee for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Mavis Hawa Koomson
When her name popped up as one of forty-six ministerial nominees presented to Parliament by President Akufo-Addo for his second term, speculations were rife that her vetting was going to be drama-filled.
Read full article These speculations were premised on her involvement in certain controversial issues in her positions as Minister for Special Initiatives and Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East.
As predicted, Hawa Koomson indeed served the members of the Appointments Committee and Ghanaians the most entertaining session of the vetting so far, except that the grounds for the drama were different from expected.
Minority members who had prepared to grill her on the gun shooting incident and her confession of government not building proper dams had to rewrite their scripts after she adopted a more apologetic and reconciliatory approach at her vetting.
She apologized for both incidents, pleading that she had to defend herself and also that her words were placed out of context by the media on the dam issue.
Hawa Koomson, however, lived up to the billing after her struggles with the English language and lack of preparedness became apparent in the early stages of the vetting.
Watching her struggle to put together coherent sentences and give meaningful answers to the elementary questions asked by some members of the committee notably Nii Lante Vanderpuye and Sampson Ahi was, to members of opposition NDC, a good view.
To them, it was a perfect illustration of President Akufo-Addo’s famous ‘we have the men’ statement.
To members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), it was a painful sight and the only justification they could give was that one needed not to be an English professor to be a minister.
But this assertion was shot down by respected public figures including Manasseh Azure Awuni, Sampson Lardy Anyenini and Franklin Cudjoe of IMANI Africa.
Not only did they agree that English should not be a measure of intelligence, but they were also unanimous in their position that Hawa Koomson exhibited beyond a reasonable doubt that it will be inimical on the part of the country to make her a minister.
Reports emerging from Parliament is that she is one of three nominees who have been rejected outrightly by members of the Appointments Committee.
According to the reports, members of the committee were unimpressed by her performance before the committee hence the decision not approve her.
