Parliament has frozen approval of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee’s report on the Electoral Commission’s controversial Constitutional Instrument (CI).
The CI was to give backing to the Electoral Commission’s quest to compile a new voters’ register but after the Chairman of the Committee accused the ranking member of doctoring the report, Parliament could not debate and approve it on Friday, June 5, 2020 ahead of the maturing of the CI on Tuesday.
Deputy Minority Whip, Ibrahim Ahmed told the House, Adentan MP, Yaw Buaben Asamoa had edited and deformed the Chairman, Dr Dominic Ayine’s report.
“The report was well written by the Chairman, per consultation building, the Chairman showed the report to the Ranking Member and the Ranking Member cancelled the portions report.
“As we are speaking, the Chairman is now writing another report. If the Ranking member cancelled portions of the report, then what report are we to debate,” he queried.
Dr Ayine confirmed the accusation.
“My Ranking Member decided that he was going to correct my report, which I didn’t have any problems with but he significantly altered the report such that what he presented to me did not resemble what I had given to him to read over,” he said.
According to him Mr Buaben Asamoa removed a whole section which captured the justification for the CI as presented by the Electoral Commission (EC).
Following this complaint, the Speaker, Mike Oquaye said it was not possible to debate and approve the CI.
Prof. Oquaye therefore, ordered the Committee to spend the weekend re-working its report and bring it back to the floor for approval on Tuesday.
“We are not in the position to subjugate the chairman’s position to any other view in this particular circumstance. In the circumstances, the Chairman of the Committee should get his members should have a look, as he desires, at the report…”
