National interest must be paramount

The vetting of ministerial nominees by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo began last Friday and has since been ongoing.

Since the exercise began, various commentators have run commentaries in the traditional and new media.

The commentaries range from the duration of the vetting process (about four hours), relevance of some questions, the posture of some members of the Appointments Committee and the tendency of the Chairman of the committee, Mr Joe Osei-Wusu, to rule out some questions.

There are those who have praised the nominees as the best kind of human talent to have been unleashed on the body politic to help President Nana Akufo-Addo to steer the affairs of the state.

Others too have put dampers on the quality of the nominees.

The Daily Graphic has issues with the duration of the vetting process for some nominees, running into about four hours.

But, as has been explained, the exercise is a fact-finding one and so we all ought to give the members of the committee the free hand to do their work.

Frankly speaking, majority of Ghanaians are not watching the proceedings because they are exceptionally long and sometimes boring.

We think the vetting process can be made more exciting if it is kept short and the partisanship taken away from it, so that the vetting will become a Ghana Project with the key objective of getting the best of ministers for the nation.

It is unfortunate that a section of our society thinks that the exercise is an organised waste of time because the Minority will have its say while the Majority will have its way, which means that every nominee will be passed, no matter the circumstances.

The Daily Graphic has a different opinion because in our Fourth Republican dispensation, some nominees have been rejected by Parliament.

What we desire now is a concerted effort by the governing party and the Appointments Committee to get the best of hands to manage the resources of the country.

In that vein, it behoves all patriotic citizens to volunteer information on the nominees, so that those not fit to hold public office can be shot down to protect the image of Ghana.

We also think that Parliament, as an institution, should be able to do some public engagement to get members of the public to appreciate the work of Parliament and the Appointments Committee. As things stand now, there is a lot of misconception about the committee.

It also means that the Appointments Committee must purge itself of any partisan bias, depending on which side of the House the members belong, so that they can scrutinise the nominees, with the interest of Ghana in mind.

Nana Akufo-Addo has appealed to Parliament to expedite the vetting process, so that the almost 60 nominee could be vetted quickly to begin the governance process.

The Daily Graphic urges all Ghanaians to give the Appointments Committee their support for it to achieve its mandate to put the best human resource at the helm of affairs.

Going forward, we ask the committee to prove all sceptics wrong by meeting the expectations of all Ghanaians.