2022 Budget brouhaha: Cooperation has suffered and will continue to suffer — Minority Leader

Minority Leader of Ghana’s Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has said cooperation between both sides of the House has broken down and would remain so henceforth.

Addressing journalists after the budget “approval” by the Majority on Tuesday, Hon. Iddrisu noted that “Cooperation has suffered and will suffer.”

He indicated that the “nullity” the Majority engaged in would haunt them forever.

Hon. Haruna who was surrounded by Members of the Minority asserted that the Majority lacked the required numbers to approve the 2022 budget yesterday.

"From tomorrow every other decisions of parliament we will insist on head counts...If this is the way they want us to walk we are capable to walk with them....They have set and precedent that will come and haunt them in future. At the time that they were taking the decision the house was not 137," he fumes.

The Minority Leader who cited Article 104 (3) of the Constitution, and Standing Order 109 of Parliament, was categorical that a "Deputy Speaker has no original or casting vote," accusing the Majority of disregarding the very Constitution they claim to be safeguarding.

He stressed that “Therefore if they claim that they respect the Constitution, they must respect the fact that today’s decision is a constitutional nullity because the Deputy Speaker has no original or casting vote. Nothing more. And therefore, they were at best, 137."

Ghana’s Law Making body has been plunged into a seemingly unending controversy over the 2022 budget statement.

The Minority side “rejected” the budget last Friday after the Majority side walked out just minutes before voting could start.

The Majority described the action of the Speaker Alban Bagbin as “biased” and that of the Minority as a “nullity.”

However on Tuesday, also in a one-sided House, the Majority approved the very budget that was rejected by the Minority on Friday.

The Minority has insisted that certain policies in the budget statement needs to be reviewed before they can support it.

"We don’t support the E-levy in its current. Our point is to revise it to take care of the ordinary people.”

“If you are acknowledging and admitting that there were concessions, let it reflect in the statement” and not a meeting at the committee level," the Minority Leader stated.