The Executive Director of the African Center for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr. Rasheed Draman has indicated that the debacle with the struggle to approve ministers and deputies recently appointed by President Nana Akufo-Addo is the excesses of democracy that must be embraced.
Dr. Draman intimated that democracy can sometimes be messy with bitter lessons but so long as it is what Ghana has signed up for, it must be upheld in good fate.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Citi FM, Dr. Dramani said, “democracy can sometimes be messy and people who believe in it will have to live with that messy part of it and that is what we are now seeing because, over the years, both parties are used to the convenience of having numbers and bulldozing their way through in Parliament.”
He added that “we may wake up one day and see a worse scenario where we will have a president in the Jubilee House and there will be a different party with a majority in Parliament.”
Dr. Draman stressed that though a substantial proportion of the population may think that the Minority is deliberately kicking against the approval of the nominees, they have made their intentions for the disapproval the very day the nominations were announced by president Nana Akufo-Addo.
“Every discerning Ghanaian would think that the Minority side is unnecessarily blocking the government because they are looking for power. They [the Majority] have put out their demands that instead of appointing more ministers, the government should try to rationalize and try to combine some ministries and I don’t think that is so much to ask for.”
Parliament resorted to secret balloting to have the president’s ministers and deputy minister nominees approved.
