The Alliance of Civil Society Organizations working in Extractive, Anti-Corruption and Good Governance has kicked against the reassessment of the Agyapa deal by the current Parliament following the detection of some anomalies by the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu.
The CSOs say the current Parliament might fail to properly scrutinize the agreement should it attempt to re-visit it for the needed auditing.
A member of the Civil Society group and the Country Director for Send Ghana, George Osei Bimbeh, says the deal should only be analyzed by the eighth parliament.
He added that with many of the parliamentarians canvassing votes for the 2020 elections, they will not be able to properly relook into the deal.
“We are not in good terms in terms of the time on had in parliament. Many of them are in the nuke and crannies of this country canvassing for votes. We do not have the massive attendance in the house and so I am a bit skeptical in terms of the kind of work that will go into it and i think that if anything at all, it shouldn’t be considered the lifetime of this parliament.”
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is expected to in the coming days send the controversial Agyapa Royalties agreement back to Parliament for further scrutiny.
This follows an assessment report of the deal submitted to the President by the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu on the deal.
President Akufo-Addo upon receipt of the report gave a directive to the Finance Minister to return of the deal to parliament will ensure transparency and probity.
“The President has accordingly, instructed the Minister that, in the interest of transparency and accountability to the Ghanaian people, the Agreements supporting the transaction that were submitted to Parliament, and approved by the House, should be resubmitted to Parliament for the approval process to start all over again.”
“This, he believes, will help address the concerns raised, principally, by the Minority, about having been given very limited time to subject properly the various Agreements to proper scrutiny. The transaction documents to be resubmitted are the Relationship Agreement, the Assignment Agreement, the Allocation Agreement, and the Investment Agreement”, a statement from the Jubilee House indicated.