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Parliament fails to approve Deputy Ministerial nominee
The Minority in Parliament had earlier initiated a process to stop the appointment of John Bless Oti as a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development after a revelation that he was part of the Montie FM panel on the day contemptuous statements were made about the Supreme Court.
Oti Bless
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Oti Bless was hoping to be approved by the House to enable him to begin his role as deputy minister within five months to go into the December polls.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Nkwanta North was cleared by Parliament’s Appointment Committee to be approved by the house as a deputy minister.
But his approval was deferred after Joe Osei-Owusu raised the issue in the house accusing Oti Bless of being part of the panellists that made contemptuous comments against Justices of the Supreme Court on Accra-based Montie FM.
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When the matter was raised on the floor of parliament on Monday, the Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu argued that the comments made by the MP were unfortunate.
“The language was disparaging to the Justices of the highest court of this land. These words are unprintable, certainly not the best from a Member of Parliament, taking the justices of the Supreme Court to the cleaners without any iota of evidence”
Oti Bless is on record questioning the actions of the Chief Justice during the 2012 election petition hearing. He accused her of doing the bidding of the New Patriotic Party.
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“Today we have a CJ who because of a Political favour done her, will do anything to help the NPP. It is an agenda. The electoral commission should stop working and give it to Georgina Woode. And we have a whole CJ, look at how old you are; you have kids and grandchildren and yet you are at the Court doing politics; you deliberately appoint NPP Judges to do politics and scheme with NPP to give biased rulings. Are you not calling for war? Are you not calling for civil war? Are you not destroying this country?” he quizzed
Meanwhile, the two other panellists and host of the show have been jailed for four months by the Supreme Court for their contemptuous comments.
In a related development, a group calling itself Law Protection Foundation have indicated that it will submit an audio recording of accusations made by Oti Bless to the court registry for appropriate actions to be taken against him.
It is still unclear the reasons behind Parliament’s decision to suspend the approval of Oti Bless.
It is yet to be seen whether members of the House will be recalled into the House to approve the nominee, or later do so when they return in September.
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