The Minority in Parliament has suspended initial attempts to sue management of the Agricultural Development Bank (adb) over their Initial Public Offer (IPO) without Parliamentary approval.
[contextly_sidebar id=”xENJ4eGNO17LDItCjX2PGFl4GUtJnesy”]About 3 weeks ago, the Efutu Member of Parliament (MP), Alex Afenyo-Markin, acting as lawyer for the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP), wrote to the management of adb asking them to seek Parliamentary approval for the bank’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) plans or be or face a court action.
Afenyo-Markin has however disclosed to Citi News that the management of the bank has given them the assurance that they will appear before the House and therefore appealed to the Minority to put on hold plans to bring legal action against them.
“They gave us the assurance that they were going to come so for the time being, we should hold on; they’ve seen the sins in the issues we had raised. They didn’t put that in writing but I received a call and the Minority leader also received a call from a top person at adb so we acted on that.”
“Their consultant called me on a Sunday to assure me that they were going to come to Parliament so we should hold on with our writ. We can only expect that they do so as soon as possible.”
The Efutu MP said the Minority MPs are giving themselves up to Friday to see whether the adb management will continue to demonstrate good faith.
“If they fail to do so, we will get the court to intervene because this is a constitutional matter – they arguing that the AG had initially advised them not to come to Parliament so if that is the position of the AG and they still maintain that, then we better go and get this matter settled.”
“It’s not a matter of frustrating adb. Our position is that the initiative to go public is very, very commendable, they should do it, and however, the laws of the land must be respected.”
The Minority has however stepped up pressure on the Ministry of Finance to bring to the House for approval, details of the Agricultural Development Bank’s (adb) plans to float some of its shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange.
Last Friday, the Efutu MP tried rather unsuccessfully, to get the presiding Speaker of the House to issue an order, compelling the Minister of Finance to appear before the House on the matter.
Speaking to Citi News after Tuesday’s proceedings of Parliament, the Efutu MP said his side of the House will not settle for anything less than a Parliamentary approval for the planned adb IPO.
He stressed that the Minority’s position still holds that the matter must come for Parliamentary approval, adding that NPP MPs grounded their position on the provisions of the constitution as well as the law that established adb.
Afenyo-Markin stated that about “two or three weeks ago, after we had dispatched a letter to adb, they came out with a statement that they were going to get the Minister of Finance to bring the matter up to Parliament for consideration so what I sought to do last week on behalf of the Minority was to draw Mr. Speaker’s attention on that matter under order 72 and per the intervention of the Majority Chief whip, he assured the House that the business committee was going to engage the Minister and see the way forward.”
He said they are expecting that by Friday, when the business for the following week is drafted, the adb issue will be included for the matter to come to Parliament.
He clarified that Minority MPs are not asking for broader consultation but “we are talking about Parliamentary approval – that is the insistence of the Minority.
The Minority’s position is that there must be prior Parliamentary approval, not consultation.”
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By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana