The Minority Leader in Parliament has cautioned the Defence Minister-designate against possibly denying him what he referred to as “a protocol allocation” due to the rigorous questioning during the latter’s vetting.
This remark followed a tense disagreement over a document Alexander Afenyo-Markin had presented to Dr Edward Omane Boamah, relating to comments the nominee made about the Ghana International School (GIS) land issue.
During the vetting session on Tuesday, January 28, Mr Afenyo-Markin pressed Dr Boamah on the authenticity of his earlier claims.
On September 5, 2024, Dr Boamah condemned what he described as the activities of “land looters” under the NPP administration.
His remarks came after an attempted land grab at GIS in Cantonments, Accra, which was thwarted by the school’s security team and local police.
Dr. Boamah had commended the school’s management for standing firm against what he called “liberal land looters.”
Mr Afenyo-Markin sought clarification on these comments, which led to a heated exchange.
The nominee argued that he believed the matter had already been settled and suggested that the incident could involve an investor acting without government approval, rather than being linked to the NPP.
“But I said, I don’t believe that kind of situation is the case, and I promise here that I will investigate it as a citizen of Ghana to get to the bottom of it. So I felt we had settled this matter about GIS land,” he explained.
However, Mr Afenyo-Markin clarified that he was not challenging Dr Omane Boamah’s statements.
Instead, he explained that Dr Omane’s earlier comments had not fully addressed the issue, which was why he revisited the question.
In response, Dr Boamah questioned whether Mr Afenyo-Markin was abandoning the GIS land issue.
The Minority Leader did not take kindly to this and retorted, “Dr, if you want to do politics with me, then don’t get irritated when we start the politics.”
Mr Afenyo-Markin then added, “Let me remind you on a lighter note, that the fact that I’m grilling you does not mean that when you get there [Ministry of Defence] and you are supposed to give protocol allocation, you deny me.”
He further stated that in the past, committee members from the National Democratic Congress side had benefited from protocol allocations even more than their NPP counterparts.
“When I was a Defence Committee member, your ranking – your members benefited. I am saying it on authority, they did, and they even had more than we the NPP members,” Mr Afenyo-Marking stated.
Source: Joy fmonline.com
