2022 Budget: Speaker Bagbin took a stance before deliberations – NPP communicator

Kafui Amegah, a member of the communication team of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), has expressed his discontent with the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin’s rule on the 2022 budget.

He believes the Speaker’s decision demonstrated bias in favour of the opposition side, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a party he belongs to.

Mr. Amegah indicated should the minority have agreed on the dialogue with the Finance Minister before the votes were cast, the narrative that day would have been a turning point for Ghanaians.

“The Speaker on the day bragged to the whole country his so many years of experience working in the legislature. He has before demonstrated how powerful he is in the country.

This all narrowed down to his one-sided ruling in parliament. For the opposition, their rejection is incomprehensible. They raised so many concerns on the budget which included the e-levy and the ‘Agyapa’ deal. So their action to boycott talks with the sector Minister was highly unnecessary. We’ve actually redesigned the ‘Agyapa’ deal and we actually wanted to school them on the e-levy,” he told Don Kwabena Prah on Happy98.9 FM’s Epa Hoa Daben political show.

He again advised Ghanaians to appreciate the efforts of the Akuffo-Addo administration and disregard news the government of the day failed to address the issues of the affected people of the Keta Disaster. He suggested the government was represented by the MCEs of the municipality.

Kafui Amegah reiterated the approach used by the Speaker of Parliament was faulty and that paid no heed to the concerns raised on the floor by the Majority, hence it was imperative for the NPP to stage a walkout.

The proposed 2022 budget submitted by Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister was rejected on Friday, November 26 after several deliberations and dramatic scenes in Parliament.

However, the Majority Caucus has released a statement to suggest that the actions for the rejection of the 2022 budget is illegal and advised Ghanaians to ignore any reports of the rejection.

“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,” part of the statement by the majority read.