Ablakwa’s Resignation Reinforces Speculation of Compromised NDC MPs

Huge question marks have come to dangle over the leadership of Hon. Haruna Iddrissu and the Minority Caucus in Parliament, after MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, suddenly resigned from the Appointments Committee today, March 30, 2021.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s party base is openly accusing Haruna of a failing leadership after the NDC lost miserably in every scramble with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the legislative chamber, despite the Hung Parliament situation.

For the party base, the last straw that broke the camel’s back was the approval of scandal-prone Minister-nominee for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.

Haruna Iddrissu’s explanation that Ofori-Atta was allowed passage because he has created a mess at the Finance Ministry and should therefore be allowed to go and face it, has annoyed the party base, with MP for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo, dissenting that decision.

It is in the wake of these issues that Ablakwa, one of the NDC’s finest MPs, unceremoniously resigned from the Appointments Committee, ahead of the vetting of Deputy Ministers.

“I shall like to state that the reasons for this difficult decision are both personal and on principle,” Ablakwa wrote in a 30th March 2021 letter to the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin.

The missing link has become the space in which many in the NDC party base are fitting reasons, chief among them is the fact that the larger NDC representation in Parliament is getting disenchanted with the leadership of Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu.

Another worry of the party’s base is that their parliamentary representatives may have been compromised by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Under the Tamale South MP, the NDC failed to block three Ministers that had been rejected by the Appointments Committee – Hawa Koomson, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and Dr. Afriyie Akoto.

Later, the NDC would also fail to block the approval of the 2021 Budget statement.

Then, it also strangely approved the nomination of Ken Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister, even though the scandal-prone Ofori-Atta was the central character in the Agyapa Mineral Royalties scandal.

Haruna Iddrissu has sought to explain away the approval as a shrewd karmic masterstroke of sorts with his excuse that Ofori-Atta should be allowed to face the mess.

But the NDC’s Bolga Central MP, Isaac Adongo, has criticized this reasoning and said Ofori-Atta ought to have been disapproved because he is a danger to the country’s financial sector.

Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin is said to have invited Hon. Ablakwa for a tete-a-tete over his resignation.