Member of Parliament for North Tongu, in the Volta Region, Samuel OKudzeto Ablakwa has chided the majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu for accusing the Speaker of Ghana’s Eighth Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin of being behind the recent exchange of blows in parliament.
On his Twitter handle, Mr. Ablakwa questioned the basis upon which the Majority Leader launched the attack on the Speaker for requesting what is due his office.
“Majority Group leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu’s desperate attempt to blackmail and throw mud at the speaker is most pathetic and must be roundly condemned. If President Akufo Addo could increase his allocation to the office of government machinery from GHS 2.5billion to GHS 3.1billion and at the same time raise his contingency vote from GHS 186.8 million to GHC 933million(a staggering 431.5% increase). What is wrong if the head of the Legislature demands that the organ he leads be accorded its fair share?” he quizzed.
The Majority Leader is reported to have accused the Speaker of being behind the pandemonium that occurred in parliament on Monday, December 20, 2021; stating that the latter had allegedly threatened to reject the 2022 budget if the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta did not make an allocation of 1.72billion for the Legislature.
Speaking to the press on Thursday, the Suame MP stated, “we are where we are because in my view of the genesis of the presentation of this Budget, the day when this Budget came to be presented, we were in the chamber, and we all saw that after the Finance Minister had walked in, we had to be at the Speaker’s office for close to 1 hour. We were not coming out.”
But the North Tongu legislator has strongly condemned the Majority Leader as well as the governing party, telling them to stop ‘looking for scapegoats to blame’ for their failed attempts to impose unpopular policies on the people.
“Government should stop these spurious attempts at looking for scapegoats to blame for its well-deserved disastrous inability railroad obnoxious policies such as E-Levy, rather pull the brakes by listening to the overwhelming majority of Ghanaians-for the voice of the people is certainly the voice of God”. He concluded.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament, James Klutse Avedzi discounted the allegation made by the Majority Leader, saying Mr. Bagbin only questioned if the ¢510m Budget allocated to Parliament was enough for the performance of its duties.
A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz| Elijah Beyeni Yenibey|Ghana
