Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga has disclosed that the vetting of Sarah Adwoa Sarfo, the Minister of Gender and Children Affairs designate was ‘soft’ because of health issues.
He said the shortest vetting of a nominee by the Appointments Committee was because the nominee is a nursing mother.
In an interview on Accra bsed Citi FM, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawmaker said the committee did not stress her based on “health grounds”.
“Before she came, we discovered that she had just delivered and so naturally, we felt that somebody who has just delivered, maybe we should have postponed her vetting, and we didn’t postpone it because we just got the information,” Mr. Ayariga explained.
He also said Adwoa Safo was a relatively “known commodity” to the committee.
“We tend to know her track record because she was a former member of the Appointments Committee. She was a leader of the House immediately preceding her most recent nomination.”
“We tend to know her track record because she was a former member of the Appointments Committee. She was a leader of the House immediately preceding her most recent nomination.”
On why more questions on her previous portfolio as Minister of State for Procurement were asked, Mr. Ayariga suggested that she did not have much influence in that sector.
“We realised that there was no amendment to really bring the Procurement Authority under her mandate. It was still under the Finance Ministry, so it constrained us in terms of the areas of consideration.”
