Minority has no excuse not exhausting legitimate parliamentary procedures – Ras Mubarak
Ras Mubarak, a former Member of Parliament for Kumbungu Constituency, has postulated that the Minority in Parliament has no excuse not exhausting legitimate parliamentary procedure to get its member into the chamber to vote.
He blamed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for not being ardent to oppose the Majority in Parliament for some of its decisions in the House.
“If the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was committed and determined to the point of wheeling a seriously ill Member of Parliament (MP) in an ambulance to vote, the NDC has failed to deploy its parliamentary prowess to prevent the passage of the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) Bill.
The E-Levy was approved by the House on March 29, 2022 after it was considered under a certificate of urgency and the decision was reached after the Consideration Stage was completed by a Majority-sided House which was adopted at reduced rate of 1.5 per cent from initial 1.75 per cent amid a Minority walkout.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to assent to the bill.
However, Mr Mubarak insisted that the Minority had no excuse to galvanise its members into the Chamber to vote on passage of the levy particularly when the Majority managed to bring in a seriously ill, Ebenezer Kojo Kum, MP for Ahanta West in the Western Region, to participate in passage of the levy.
“On a day where it mattered most, leadership failed and that is what they will be remembered by when the history of shambolic spectacle is written and that is why you need serious opposition to hold them by the fire and not make them get away with horrendous issue they got away with in Parliament,” he posited.
Haruna Iddrisu, MP for Tamale South in the Northern Region, and the Minority Caucus accused the Majority Caucus of smuggling into the Order Paper, consideration of the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy (Bill because it was not listed in Business Statement OF Parliament for this week and questioned why the Majority would pull such a surprise on them.
Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the NDC, blamed the Clerk of Parliament for tampering with vital evidence to be used by the Minority in challenging the one-sided approval of the levy and contended that the Clerk who kept possession of records of the House, deliberately marked eight NDC MPs absent, in spite of them being present in the Chamber.
He said since the Office of the Clerk had been compromised by the Majority, he called on leadership of the Minority to challenge altered documents, backed decision of NDC MPs to stage a walkout during consideration of the levy and maintained that the government should rather be blamed for imposing the levy on the citizenry and not the Minority.
Source:GTonline
