A Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Fiifi Kwetey, has described his latest ordeal in Parliament, where he was refused a hearing on the floor as a representative of the substantive minister, as an act of personal vendetta against him by his detractors. “They have their own kind of agenda, the same reason why they kept me at the vetting for four hours; the same reason why the final approval process in Parliament took another four hours. Clearly, the same war that is raging on under a different guise,” he asserted on the Radio Gold Wednesday. Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) on Tuesday vehemently protested that the Deputy Minister was not qualified to answer questions on policy issues, insisting that the question should rather be answered by the substantive minister. This argument however seems not to have sounded right in the ears of Fiifi, who in a reaction, said the behaviour of the Minority in Parliament on the issue, smacks of inconsistency and double standards. He argued that the situation, as witnessed in parliament last Tuesday, best fits a situational irony, making reference to sometime in October last year, when he was in that same house representing the substantive minister to answer diverse questions on the economy, ranging from inflation to the depreciation of the currency, “which I answered immaculately,” he said in praise of himself. For him, the incident clearly indicates a deep-seated agenda by the Minority in Parliament against him. He argued further that his presence in Parliament was of great national importance in keeping the citizens informed on the state of the economy, and thus for any group of people to vindictively throw him out to score points, was unfortunate. Reacting to the widely-spread perception of him as being arrogant, full of himself, and having little respect for members of the legislature, the possible reason for his constant collusion with the minority side in parliament, Fiifi Kwetey, simply disagrees. “no, I don’t think so at all. The issue about arrogance in this country many, many a time, anybody who is very assertive; who knows as it were stands his grounds; who is a person of principle; who knows his conviction and would not budge, is invariably referred to as an arrogant person. This definition would have to be looked at again,” he noted. Parliament on Tuesday refused to hear Mr Fiifi Kwetey, who was there to represent the substantive minister to answer questions on the floor of the House. This follows protests by the Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) that the Deputy Minister was not qualified to answer questions on policy issues, insisting that the questions should rather be answered by the substantive minister. After a heated debate between the two sides on the issue, the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Mrs Joyce Bamford Addo, ruled that the questions should be answered by the substantive Minister, Mr Kwabena Duffour. Source: The Chronicle /Ghana