Claim

Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed on Monday (March 27) alleged that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was the first party to have its lawmakers disobey the party's stated position over approval of ministerial nominees under the Fourth Republic.

In defending his claim, the MP cited the 2009 case of then sitting MP for Ketu South, Fifi Fiavi Kwettey, who had been appointed by late president Atta Mills as a deputy finance and economic planning minister-designate.

Fifi Fiavi Kwetey is the current general secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), was grilled by an Appointments Committee that failed to pass his nomination by consensus as they did with the others, referring his report to the plenary for a vote.

Murtala explained: “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).

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.

Verdict:

Going by the numbers in the House, it was statistically impossible for four NPP MPs to have voted for Fifi Kwetey's nomination. Ibrahim Murtala's claim is therefore, false.

GNA report of March 28 on approval of Fifi Kwetey

Parliament endorses Fifi Kwetey's nomination

By a vote of 117 to 106, Parliament Friday night approved the nomination of Mr Fifi Kwetey as a Deputy Minister- designate for Finance and Economic Planning. A heated and prolonged debate heralded his endorsement, which saw the House going into a long voting procedure after the Minority had rejected a head count of members.

Moving the motion for the approval of Mr Kwetey, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, Chairman of the Appointments Committee of Parliament said the Committee carried out its duty diligently in accordance to the 1992 Constitution and the Standing Orders of the House with respect to the nomination of Mr. Kwetey.

He said the committee, having satisfied itself that the nominee has fully met the requirement of the Constitution and called on members of the House to approve the nomination of Mr Kwetey. The Minority, however, called on the House to reject the nominee based on various reasons.

The Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said the integrity of people nominated to hold public office matters should be established and that members of the House should be discerning and consider the interest of the nation by doing what was right and reject the nominee. He said Mr. Kwetey made false allegations against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government and when his attention was drawn to that he replied that what he said was true and that given the opportunity he would do it again.

Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu described Mr Kwetey's rhetoric's as "improper and unfortunate," adding that, the nominee did not show any humility during the vetting, which does not augur well for someone seeking public office.

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