It may be time to end vetting if it has become an avenue for extortion – Kwaku Azar

Social commentator and legal scholar Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has called for a rethink of Parliament’s vetting process amid concerns over alleged monetary payments to members of the Appointments Committee.

Prof. Asare said the vetting process could lose its purpose if it becomes associated with demands for or receipt of money from persons appearing before the committee.

“It may be time to end vetting if it has become an avenue for extortion,” he wrote in a social media post on Friday, September 4.

It follows the circulation of false reports indicating a supposed return of GHS70,000 by Deputy Minority Leader and Asokwa MP Patricia Appiagyei in connection with Parliament’s recent vetting of ministerial and Supreme Court nominees.

In a memorandum, which has been dismissed as fake and was supposedly addressed to Minority Chief Whip Frank Annoh-Dompreh, the Asokwa is wrongly quoted as saying the GHS70,000 was given to her as an advance from the Majority Chief Whip.

She explained that she was uncomfortable accepting the money because she did not know its original source and did not want to financially benefit from the vetting of Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga and Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Dr Zanetor Agyemang-Rawlings.

The Minority had protested the decision to fast-track the vetting of the nominees and subsequently did not participate in the exercise.

Parliament later approved three Supreme Court nominees after adopting the report of the Appointments Committee.

They were Justice Sophia Rosetta Bernasko Essah, Justice Edward Amoako Asante and private legal practitioner Anthony Forson Jnr.