S.A. evacuation: Minority blocked Ablakwa from appearing before Foreign Affairs Committee – Okoe Vanderpuije

The Chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, has accused the Minority of preventing Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa from appearing before the committee to explain expenditure on the evacuation of Ghanaians from South Africa. He said the Minority had insisted on receiving documents relating to the GH¢49.72 million evacuation expenditure before the minister could be invited to brief the committee, but failed to return to the committee with questions after the information was provided.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Top Story on Tuesday, October 27, Mr Vanderpuije said the committee had initially agreed to postpone the minister’s appearance to allow the Minority to examine the requested documents. “Yes, the Minority said they will not sit to listen to the minister. They want to receive the information first. So we respected that. We postponed the meeting,” he said.

Mr Vanderpuije was responding to questions about the Minority’s continued demand for Mr Ablakwa’s resignation and its threat to initiate a censure motion against him over alleged discrepancies in the evacuation expenditure. Read also: Minority demands Ablakwa’s resignation or dismissal over SA evacuation payments He said he had expected the Minority to return to the committee after reviewing the documents and identify specific issues that required clarification from the minister, who, he said, was willing to appear.

“As chair of the committee, I was expecting that when the minister has provided the information, and they have looked at it, if they have any problems, they would have come back to me and say, look, we have the information, we’ve looked at it, but we need the minister to come and explain certain things to us,” he said. According to him, the Minority’s failure to follow that process denied both sides of the committee the opportunity to question the minister and examine the expenditure together.

He also criticised the Deputy Ranking Member of the committee for going public with allegations against the minister before the committee had completed its work. Mr Vanderpuije said he considered that approach unprofessional, arguing that the committee should have been allowed to hear the minister’s explanations and establish whether there were errors in the records.

“He should have allowed the process of the committee to continue, so that we would have all had the opportunity, both sides, Majority and Minority, to have the minister there,” he said. The committee chairman said the Majority had also examined the information provided and had not found the discrepancies being alleged by the Minority. “So we, the Majority, also have to look at the information and we came back and we said, look, all what you are saying, we have not seen it,” he said.

He added that the minister had agreed for the documents and expenditure records to be referred to the Auditor-General for examination, arguing that the findings should guide further discussions on the matter. “The Auditor-General will look at it and the Auditor-General will come back and tell all of Ghana what he found,” Mr Vanderpuije said. He maintained that the referral to the Auditor-General was consistent with calls for an independent examination of the expenditure, dismissing the Minority’s demand for the minister to resign before the process had been completed.

Mr Vanderpuije questioned why the Minority had escalated its demands when the relevant investigative bodies had not yet presented their findings. “Independent bodies like the Attorney-General have not come to give us what they have found. Now you are jumping the gun and saying that the minister should resign,” he said. Read also: South Africa evacuation expenditure ‘smacks of a grand scheme of corruption’ – Abu Jinapor The dispute follows allegations by the Minority that GH¢16.4 million of the GH¢49.72 million reportedly spent on evacuating 1,964 Ghanaians from South Africa remains unaccounted for.

The Minority has called for an investigation by an independent, internationally reputable auditing and accounting firm and insists that Mr Ablakwa should resign pending the outcome of the investigation. The minister has rejected the allegations, maintaining that the expenditure has been accounted for and agreeing to have the records examined by the Auditor-General.