Parliamentarians are not the leaders we wanted – Ken Ashigbey

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Ghana Telecommunication Chamber, Ken Ashigbey, has expressed disappointment at Members of Parliament (MPs) for their inappropriate behavior during the deliberation on the proposed e-levy.

The topic of a 1.75% e-levy tax, which could see taxes placed on mobile money transactions, since its introduction on the floor of Parliament has become very sensitive issue to Ghanaians while the Minority caucus have indicated that they would do anything to reject this new tax.

Parliament resumed proceedings on Monday, December 20 to finally vote on the approval of the e-levy tax. Unfortunately for the country, chaos erupted during proceedings when MPs gathered in front of the Chamber exhibiting their manpower after the Acting Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu decided the tax be debated in an urgency procedure.

This act according to Ken Ashigbey is a gross misconduct by the leaders of the country who have been tasked to make civilized decisions without the use of abuse. He counseled the MPs to lead by example as the entire country, especially the younger generations have their eyes set on them.

“I believe we all need to express our disquiet about what happened in parliament. I think that this misbehavior from our leaders, our parliamentarians is really becoming unbecoming and we need to call them out. We expect so much from them because they’re our representatives and if they don’t expect that when ordinary Ghanaians don’t agree on an issue they go at each other with fisticuffs, then we don’t expect them to do that either on the floor of Parliament,” he bemoaned during an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show.

The Telecommunication Chamber Boss also indicated that, this act could go a long way to drive investors out of the country and could cost Ghana investment opportunities. “Practically, I spoke to one MP from the Majority side of Parliament, where he told me he woke up the following morning after the incident to a message from an investor he has been trying to get to invest in the country. He told the MP upon all the things he is seeing, he is reconsidering other locations. Those are the repercussions when we allow such things to happen at the highest level of power.”

He further cautioned MPs to attune to the fact that the system where one party usually has supreme power has been modified, therefore they need to deliberate issues without the use of punches. Moving forward, he suggested that Parliamentarians should be punished if such inappropriate behavior is repeated.

Meanwhile, Parliament has adjourned proceedings for the Christmas festivities after another attempt to pass the controversial e-levy could not yield any fruit.