Chairman of Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Monday, 23 January, abruptly “ruled out” Tamale North MP and member of the committee Alhassan Suhuyini from questioning Energy Minister-designate Boakye Agyarko any further after a heated back-and-forth between the two legislators that followed the minority MP’s initial question.
Mr Joe Osei Owusu cut off Mr Suhuyini, who, at the time, was vehemently protesting against the manner in which he was being handled by the chairman after Mr Osei Owusu had intervened to stop him from asking a question pertaining to a money laundering scandal at the Bank of New York where Energy Minister-designate Boakye Agyarko had worked prior to his resignation.
The NDC MP said he was merely trying to demand clarity on the circumstances that surrounded Mr Agyarko’s resignation vis-à-vis the money laundering scandal but the chairman of the committee felt Mr Suhuyini was breaching the rules of the sitting by asking such a question.
The sitting temporarily degenerated into a market square atmosphere until the chairman restored order. While explaining to the committee that the New York branch of the bank had nothing to do with the money laundering scandal that happened in the bank’s UK branch, Mr Agyarko wondered why Mr Suhuyini would attempt to link him, in the first place, to a scandal in which neither his bank branch nor his name was implicated.
Mr Suhuyini was subsequently cut off by the chairman of the committee as he attempted asking further questions and explaining his reasons for asking the first question.
He complained to the chairman that he was “unhappy” about the way he had been treated on the committee by the chairman.
Speaking on the incident, Wa Central MP Dr Rashid Pelpuo told Joy FM the Minority took serious exception to Mr Osei Owusu’s behaviour, since, in his view, he was “autocratic” by “rudely” stopping Mr Suhuyini in his tracks.
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