Appointments Committee Vets 4 For Ministers, Deputy Regional Minister Designate
2/12/2012 2:30:26 AM -
The Appointments Committee of Parliament Thursday vetted four nominees of President John Evans Atta Mills for appointment as ministers and a deputy minister.
They are Mr Moses Asaga, Minister for Employment and Social Welfare; Mr Dominic Azimbe Azumah, Minister of State at the Presidency; Mr Fritz Baffour, Minister of Information, and Mr Henry Kwadwo Ametefee, Deputy Volta Regional Minister.
The vetting of Mr Ametefee was nearly postponed when Mr Joe Osei-Wusu, the MP for Bekwai, insisted that the nominee’s name had been spelt differently by the letter signed by the President to Parliament informing the House of Mr Ametefee’s nomination from the name appearing on the nominee’s curriculum vitae.
He said because of the different names, it was possible Mr Ametefee might not be the person who had been nominated for deputy ministerial appointment.
The Chairman of the Appointments Committee, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, had to offer assurance to the committee that the error would be ironed out at the committee level before the challenge was dropped by the MP.
Apart from that incident, the vetting of the ministers and the deputy regional minister designate went smoothly.
Responding to questions on what new ideas he would bring onto the table, Mr Asaga, who was the first to appear before the committee, said his priority when given the nod would be to create more jobs.
He explained that when approved, he would undertake skills gap analysis to enable the country and industries to produce skills that would be required by industry to reduce unemployment in the country.
Mr Azumah, who was described by the committee members as a team player, had a field day, compared to the barrage of questions other nominees had to answer.
Mr Baffour, when he took his turn, proposed a national stakeholders’ conference for the country to come up with a national story which, when told, could move Ghanaians to show patriotism and be prepared to go the extra mile to make the country a great nation like other nations.
