Several committee members were surprised when Controller and Accountant General Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem did not show up for the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) meeting on Monday.
On behalf of his office, which is a ministry of finance institution, Mr. Kwaning-Bosompem was scheduled to appear and answer questions; nevertheless, he departed without the committee’s consent.
The Controller and Accountant-General, who was running for parliament at New Akyem Swedru on behalf of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was defeated on Saturday, January 27, 2024.
Kennedy Osei Nyarko, the current Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, defeated Kwaning-Bosompem, receiving only 94 votes as opposed to the incumbent’s 194.
Abena Osei-Asare, the deputy minister for finance in charge of the ministry and its agencies, attempted to justify the Controller and Accountant General’s absence during the Monday PAC meeting, but her justification was not convincing.
Yusif Sulemana, a PAC member and the MP for Bole Bamboi, stated that Kwaning-Bosompem had said his participation in the NPP primary would not interfere with his work and that he could not take time off work simply because he had lost the primary.
The MP’s remark caused the committee meeting to erupt in laughter. If he is on leave, let us know because we were told that he was contesting for an election, and he said that he was still at post and was capable of handling the two activities, so why is he not here… he should have been here, regardless the loss,” he Bole Bambi MP said.
The PAC Chairman, James Klutse Avedzi, stepped in to support the deputy minister by requesting committee members to postpone their questioning on Kwaning-Bosompem until a later time. The MP had requested that Osei-Asare provide a concrete explanation for the Accountant-General’s absence.
