The Controller and Accountant General, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem, last Monday, failed to show up at the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC), leaving some members of the committee confused about his absence.
Mr Kwaning-Bosompem was scheduled to answer questions on behalf of his office, which is an agency of the Ministry of Finance, but he did not show up without permission from the committee.
The Controller and Accountant-General, who was looking to represent the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as a parliamentary candidate at New Akyem Swedru, lost his bid during the polls on Saturday, January 27, 2024.
Votes
Kwaning-Bosompem was beaten by the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Kennedy Osei Nyarko, securing only 94 votes to the incumbent’s 194.
During the PAC sitting on Monday, a Deputy Minister for Finance, Abena Osei-Asare, who led the ministry and its agencies, tried to explain the Controller and Accountant General’s absence, but her explanation did not wash.
The MP for Bole Bamboi, Yusif Sulemana, a member of PAC, said that Kwaning-Bosompem indicated that his contesting in the NPP primaries would not affect his work and for that matter, he could not be absent just because he lost the primaries.
Outburst
This comment by the MP led to an outburst of laughter at the committee sitting.
“I want to ask whether the Controller is on leave.
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 MP insisted that Osei-Asare should give a tangible reason the Accountant-General was absent, but the Chairman of PAC, James Klutse Avedzi, came to the rescue of the deputy minister by asking members of the committee to shelve their questions on Kwaning-Bosompem for a later date.