Yesterday, the Members of Parliament for Assin Central and Ningo Prampram, Honourables Kennedy Agyapong and Sam George nearly fought in parliament.
They engaged in hot verbal exchanges that nearly escalated to blows during a committee hearing.
[ads1]Agyapong and George, both members of the Committee on Communications disagreed on the direction of the ‘controversial’ Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTT) platform deal between the government of Ghana and Startimes.
Here’s exactly what happened, according to the two MPs in a media interview later on.
Ken Agyapong said he was furious that even though members of the committee, had agreed on Tuesday that, nobody should go public with information ahead of their meeting with GIBA on Thursday, Mr Sam George had flouted and went on an IMANI Africa platform, to discuss the issues of the DTT deal.
He said: “Apparently, I wasn’t happy with what he said yesterday at the IMANI meeting but he had a reason for saying whatever he said was because somebody made a statement, actually insulting the integrity of the committee, so his response”.
“We [committee] had earlier met, that we were going to meet GIBA on Thursday, so I was surprised to hear him talking. Honestly speaking, what the person said I did not hear until today when the problem came, then we retired to chambers then he [George] also explained that you didn’t listen to me.”
“So initially, I confronted him, I was very furious of yesterday because of previous decisions we have all taken but honestly after we came back, we had a fruitful discussion and you can ask GIBA whatever decisions we took”, Agyapong added.
Corroborating the story of Ken Agyapong, Sam George reports that they nearly fought are exaggerated.
He said, “My chairman felt that post our Tuesday committee meeting, I should have made any comment on the matter but I later drew his attention to the matter that someone had passed comments that cast aspersions on the integrity of the entire committee of communications and that is why I had to go and clear the air on the IMANI platform, because the person had spoken to the media and the media was present at that platform.”
“Post that we came back and had fruitful engagements with GIBA and going forward, GIBA is meeting the Ministry this afternoon and we would also be having further meetings with other stakeholders like the NCA and the Ministry to understand fully this matter and as a committee, we would continue to exercise our oversight responsibilities”, he added.
He jovially added that “So anybody who says it was a physical confrontation, I am a son of a fisherman, and he had come with his black belt, he would have met a fisherman’s son.”
They both claim it was the NDC MP for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak that broke the story to the media and that he exaggerated it.
“I hear Honourable [Ras] Mubarak saying it was physical, no, no it wasn’t physical, he is here, you can ask him. I am a black belt [holder], if it was physical, you’d have seen him, you’d have seen the marks”, Ken Agyapong said.
