Budget Rejection: NDC MPs Threatened To Overthrow Government – Stephen Amoah
The Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso, Stephen Amoah has accused the opposition MPs of acting in bad faith in a bid to reject the government’s budget and economic policy for the year 2022.
It can be recalled that the minority in parliament on Friday, November 27, 2021, voted to reject the budget after the majority MPs had staged a walkout during proceedings leading to the final approval voting on the budget.
But touching on the issue in an interview the Nhyiaeso MP alleged that the opposition (NDC) MPs without recourse to the interest of the nation, stormed the proceedings with an entrenched position to reject the budget.
“The minority had already taken an entrenched position that because of the numerical strength that they had, they were going to impair everything that this government decides to do so that development will be very sluggish and impeded, and it will look as if this government is not doing well so that Ghanaians will vote for them. They just want Ghanaians to go through a lot of hardships so that Ghanaians will reject this government,” he stated.
On the entrenchment of the minority’s position against the budget, Stephen Amoah stated that while the minister for finance had expressed willingness to find a common ground on the objections the minority raised about some policies contained in the budget, the minority refused to come to the table.
Stephen Amoah said he chanced on a section of the minority MPs scheming to thwart the government.
He also alleged that some minority MPs threatened to overthrow the government.
“For them, it is not about Ghana. They are doing everything to come to power. So even if Ghana will get burnt and they will win 2024 they don’t seem to care. I can tell you that even before we all went to the chamber to debate, they were passing, I was standing there with three media men and in fact, I can’t pinpoint the exact person who said it. But they were all NDC guys, they were about 15 and that was the time they were heading towards the speaker’s administration. And then one of them was like ‘today we will show them, we will overthrow this government’”, he alleged.
According to him, he had witnesses who confirmed some of the utterances by the NDC MPs.
“So it is something that they had already decided. But the fact is that, let’s all be very careful as stakeholders. Whether somebody is NPP or NDC it doesn’t matter. But the issue is that if they have this mentality, are you sure the remaining three years Ghana can move forward. The most painful thing is that they as MPs may be okay, Nana Addo may be okay, and former president Mahama may be okay. But the ordinary Ghanaian on the street will not be okay,” he added.
The finance minister on Friday moved for parliament to vote on the budget. Prior to that, however, he moved that the speaker allowed him to engage leaders of both sides on some issues.
During voting on whether the minister should be allowed to engage the leaders, the speaker ruled on the motion as ‘rejected’ based on a voice vote.
The majority however raised objection to the speaker’s ruling following which they staged a walkout.
After objecting to the ruling against the finance minister’s motion to engage leaders of both sides, the majority MPs raised an objection calling for a revote. The speaker then asked the finance minister to exit the floor but the majority who were infuriated by the directive insisted that the NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who was also seated at the public gallery be made to exit the chamber as well.
The refusal of the speaker to order Mr Asiedu Nketia out of the chamber also caused the Majority to boycott proceedings leaving only the minority to vote on the budget.