Fixing The Country Ghana Group has indicated that the Minority in Parliament is so “money conscious” that they only pretend publicly to protect the public purse whiles they go behind the scenes to fight over allowances and plunder the national kitty wherever and whenever possible.
According to the Group, this is due to the fact that no allowances are paid for sitting at the chamber whereas huge allowances await them at the committee stages; hence their boycott during the passage of the Budget.
In a statement issued by Fixing The Country Ghana, they commended the Majority for taking the bold step and able and willing to scrutinise the budget estimates to ensure value for money for all sectors of the economy.
“Any attempt to allow the minority group to participate just for the allowances that they have eyed will be disastrous to the public purse and very shameful indeed.”
They stressed that the Speaker of Parliament led the rejection of the budget because minority had raised issues with government revenue measures.
It said, the Speaker’s open display of opulence with his “family and friends” trip apportioning heavy dollar per diem allowances at the expense of the tax payer to his entourage, and if the minority was not displaying greed to amass allowances unto themselves.
“We may be deemed biased, but is that not the reality that we are experiencing at this time that the 2022 budget has come to pull us out of the negative effects of the COVID pandemic and the general economic quagmire that the world has found itself in as a result?.”
Fixing The Country Ghana however averred that the Audit Service had submitted its budget estimates totalling GHS 680,758,584 to the President and that the Finance Ministry had no revisions and thus, Government agreed to accommodate Audit Service’s expenditure estimates for the year 2022.
Parliament and the Parliamentary Service also submitted their estimates to the President via a letter signed by the Speaker, which conveyed a sentiment of all or nothing. Government initially proposed GHS 510,777,000 as expenditure estimates it can accommodate for the year 2022 which the Speaker and his team rejected.
Subsequent negotiations, it noted, resulted in a recommendation of GHS 687,999,121 by Government, higher than all the statutory bodies had submitted to the President.
The Group revealed that the Speaker wanted all or nothing and thus, chose to frustrate the Government in passing the budget as the real reason behind the budget impasse is that the Speaker wants GHS 1.73bn (one billion seven hundred and thirty thousand Ghana Cedis to spend in 2022, but Government strictly wants to protect the public purse in these tight fiscal times.
The Group described the minority as “a bunch of greedy, incompetent, selfish, hypocritical, and self-aggrandising dishonourable persons,” who are only interested in warming their way into the hearts of the people of Ghana to be able to come back to power by resorting to wicked lies and unfounded propaganda.
