Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong has admonished his colleague MPs not to sacrifice the responsibility they have to their people on the side issue of who presents the 2023 Budget to Parliament.
According to him, if there is ever a time Ghanaians expected them as Parliamentarians to do their duty to Ghana unconditionally, “it is now.”
Kennedy Agyapong was responding to the troubling public declaration of intention by some aggrieved New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs that they would neither attend Thursday’s sitting of Parliament nor have anything to do with subsequent Parliamentary discussions and debate on the 2023 Budget should Mr. Ofori-Atta be the Minister presenting it to the House.
He stated in a Press Statement dated November 22, 2022 that, “The said MPs have openly stated that they will only attend proceedings if Mr Ofori-Atta, who they – rightly or wrongly – blame for the country’s prevailing economic difficulties, is removed from office. I find the said public declarations not only unfortunate but regrettable. I know fully well that calls for the sacking of Mr Ofori-Atta reached the President in September, and he has given assurances that he will revisit the matter after the Budget presentation and a successful end to Ghana’s ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
The leadership of the Majority Group later issued a statement agreeing to the President’s request.
He said the insistence by some MPs that they will not attend Thursday’s proceedings means no more than an attempt to blackmail or unduly force the hands of the President and or “undermine his authority and agenda for Ghanaians. That cannot be right. The President is our leader and deserves the full benefit of the doubt if any.”
He said: “In any case, we have all been elected as Members of Parliament to serve the best interests of the people of our individual and collective constituencies. Given the crippling economic crisis facing the people of Ghana and their businesses, it is the highest level of insensitivity towards the plight of our nation and her people for any elected representative or group of elected representatives to use their public offices to attempt to hold hostage efforts to address the economic problems facing all of us.”
According to Kennedy Agyapong, the patriotic, urgent, compassionate and proper thing to do is first to help the government pass its budget and then later confront and address, if they must, the issue of who is fit or not fit to lead the Ministry of Finance.
“Let us show leadership and demonstrate solidarity with the struggling masses of our people by turning out in our numbers to support the President’s proposed plan to put Ghana back on the path of economic recovery and triumph. Every NPP MP has to preserve and ensure that the agenda of the Akufo-Addo government for Ghana succeeds, otherwise, the people of Ghana would have no reason to return the NPP to power in 2024.”
He called on the good people of Ghana to keep the faith and trust that the NPP government has the right plan, strategy, and requisite expertise to steer our country out of the prevailing economic headwinds, stressing that “These are very challenging global times, with escalating energy and food prices pushing millions in Africa and elsewhere into extreme poverty and threatening the internal security of many nations, including ours. Ghanaians need, therefore, their elected representatives to show up for work and help them survive the worsening global economic turmoil. It is not the time to play political games or feed egos.”
