Among the business of the House, E-levy is not part
This was revealed by Ahmed Ibrahim
Contrary to the expectation that, once the Parliament resumes for the first sitting of the new year on Tuesday, January 25, 2022, the Electronic Transaction Levy [E-levy] Bill, will be re-introduced to the House by the Finance Ministry, that expectation is unlikely.
This won’t come on because, at Parliament’s most recent business committee meeting, the government of Ghana failed to present the E-levy bill to the MPs for its subsequent reintroduction.
This was revealed by, Ahmed Ibrahim, the Deputy Minority Whip and MP for Banda during an interview on Joy News on Monday, January 24.
According to him, the government failed to present the E-levy bill to the business committee because, during Parliament’s recess, the government did not hold any engagement with stakeholders but rather government officials went to celebrate Christmas.
“I’m very worried that for the whole recess, government who was confronted with a lot of challenges for his inability to push through E-levy went to celebrate the Christmas instead of choosing to meet the stakeholders who mattered in executing this kind of business, and I’m very surprised.
“So it will interest you to know that government or nobody in the NPP MPs or nobody in the NPP Ministers, or nobody in the executive including even the President of the Republic and his Chief of Staff have met or engaged anybody in the Minority, not even the Minority Leader or the Party or the MPs within this recess,” Ahmed Ibrahim said.
He added, “So today I was not surprised that they went for a business committee meeting and government could not table the E-levy as part of the business to be executed in this week. So, the e-levy is not on the business statement for this week.”
Meanwhile, “Government says he’s now going to consult. So, government is now telling us today that he’s now going to consult the Minority, Civil Society Organisations, the political parties, and all those people who matter in the passage of the bill. But my question is why did the government choose not to do this in the recess?”
“Because you are the very person who is complaining, we were on recess, and the Speaker said go and engage so that by the time we resume cool heads will prevail, you chose not to do that. Today we went for business committee meeting you’re saying you’re now going to do the consultation. So can you blame us in the Minority for obstructing government business? The answer is no,” Ahmed Ibrahim stressed.
Parliament