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Members on the Minority side of Parliament have boycotted Tuesday’s proceedings.
After the Minority rejected the 2022 budget last Friday, following the walkout by the Majority side, Ghanaians were expecting a showdown in the House today, Tuesday, November 30, 2021.
Although reasons for the Minority’s absence in Parliament are sketchy, Citi News understands that they and their counterparts on the Majority side could not arrive at a consensus on requests for some amendments to be made to the 2022 budget.
“We clearly agreed that Parliament would sit at 3:30 pm [today] after having lunch. But it’s a pity they are not here [in the plenary],” the Second Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu, who chaired the sitting, said.
Majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu has moved a motion to set aside the rejection of the Budget which was upheld by the Minority last Friday. This was after he raised concerns over the manner the rejection was arrived at.
He argued that, the rejection failed to meet the provisions of under Article 104. “Parliament did not have the requited numbers to be present in the chamber for the purposes of taking decisions”, he said.
The Deputy Speaker thus ordered a head count to have the motion by the Majority Leader moved.
It emerged after counting by the clerks of the house that the Members of Parliament present were 137 plus the Deputy Speaker himself making 138 members to form a majority.
On Friday, November 26, the Minority Caucus voted to reject the budget after the Majority Caucus staged a walkout.
However, the Majority Caucus later asked Ghanaians to disregard the supposed rejection of the budget as it was unconstitutional.
A statement from the Majority said: “For the record, the acts of the Minority and the decision of the Speaker to endorse it, constitute an unconstitutionality and an illegality and should be disregarded, as same is void and of no effect whatsoever”.
But the Minority believes the rejection of the budget still stands.
In a statement, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, called on the Finance Minister to revise the 2022 budget and re-present the document.
He said the revised document must come without the e-levy and the Agyapa royalties deal.
He also wants a revised budget to capture the construction of the Blekusu sea defense project, among others.
Source: citinewsroom.com
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