“Let me place on record that I am ever ready to submit myself to ORAL,” Bernard Ahiafor, the Chairman of Parliament’s Appointments Committee, has categorically stated.

He was responding to a challenge by Oliver Barker-Vormawor, Tuesday, January 28, 2025.

Lawyer and political activist Barker-Vormawor has alleged the Appointments Committee was taking bribes from ministerial nominees before their vetting and approval.

On January 24, he wrote on Facebook, “So all the monies the ministerial appointees are being asked to pay to the Appointments Committee just to get approved, are those ones not affected by ORAL? Strange Republic.”

ORAL is short for Operation Recover All Loot, a drive by the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) to deter corruption while fostering accountability.

“I, Bernard Ahiafor, First Deputy Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, and the Chairman of the Vetting Committee, want to place it on record that myself and the committee members do not demand money from any nominee before vetting and approval,” Chairman Ahiafor said.

He has, also, directed the Clerk of the Committee to formally invite Barker-Vormawor to appear before the committee on Wednesday, January 29, “at 10, before noon,” to “provide evidence” of the chairman and or committee members engaging in bribery and corruption.

“When he fails, then we can invoke the powers of the committee under Article 103 and our own standing order 134,” he noted.

Furthermore, some minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) members of the committee have called for the ongoing vetting of ministerial nominees to be suspended until Barker-Vormawor appeared before the committee to provide evidence for his allegations.