Parliament’s Special Budget Committee has reportedly ended a meeting with officials of the Electoral Commission over the absence of the Chairperson of the Commission, Madam Jean Mensa.
The committee on Tuesday, December 14, 2021, was scheduled to meet officials of the commission to consider the 2022 budget estimates for the election management body.
However, JoyNews in a report sighted by GhanaWeb indicated that the absence of the EC chairperson from the meeting caused the committee to send away other officials of the EC who had turned up.
According to the report, the decision to end the meeting was after the delegation led by the EC’s Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Cooperate Services, Dr Eric Bossman Asare failed to justify the absence of their head from the meeting.
The committee members explained that the presence of the EC chairperson was required for the meeting as a result of some critical constitutional matters such as the creation of a constituency for residents of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lipke and Lolobi (SALL), which the Chairperson must answer.
A member of the special committee, Ahmed Ibrahim has noted that Madam Jean Mensa has persistently failed to avail herself before the committee.
The Banda MP in an interview with JoyNews said that the committee will not consider budget estimates for the EC until Madam Jean Mensa appears before the committee.
“Because this is the only Committee that oversight all the constitutional bodies. All the other constitutional bodies have been here (led) by their chairpersons and chief executive officers. So it will not be fair to them,” he noted.
According to him, Madam Jean Mensa in a similar fashion failed to avail herself to the committee during the mid-year budget review for 2021.
“And this is not the first time, you know when we went to Rock City to do the mid-year budget performance review, she could not come; her deputies arrived. We listened to them.
“So we were with the view that when we come for the budget hearing, she will come. So it was unfortunate that she was not here. But there are serious constitutional issues that would be raised in the budget hearing,” he said.
On the issue of SALL, Ahmed Ibrahim said “we cannot claim to be representing the people of Ghana when some of them have no representation. And if you keep quiet on this, then who else will speak for them?
“We need to know her policies, juxtapose them with the estimates and the figures, then assess her performance in the previous budget before we can approve the 2022 one,” he added.
