Leadership missing in Parliament – MFWA

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), a Non-Governmental Organization for safeguarding media freedom has taken an exception to the lack of leadership on the part of the Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu.

The Media Foundation maintained that the Majority Leader who is also the governing New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Suame Constituency in the Ashanti Region has not shown leadership.

“These shameful acts of pandemonium on the floor should not have happened if there was leadership,” the Executive Secretary of MFWA Sulemana Braimah said on Accra 100.5 FM’s mid-day news on Tuesday, December 21, 2021.

His comment comes on the back of the free-for-all fight by parliamentarians over the passage of the controversial Electronic Levy (E-Levy) on Monday 20 December 2021.

He blamed the lack of leadership and consensus-building on the part of the Majority Leader and his group on the floor.

“This should not be happening when there is leadership and consensus-building,” he said.

“This is a shameful act that must be encouraged after three decades of elegant Parliamentary performance in the history of the Fourth Republic,” he added.

Mr Braimah noted that the posture of the Executive arm of government not to recognize the strength of the Minority is worrying.

He said the recalcitrant posture of the Executive over the passage of the controversial E-levy on the floor of parliament makes the situation more shameful.

He predicted that things will soon get out of hand if the Executive continue to treat the Minority with disdain.

The NDC and its Minority are against the 1.75 percent levy which will affect electronic transactions.

Several calls on the government to drop the proposed tax has fallen on deaf ears.

The government has explained that the upsurge in the use of e-payment platforms, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been an impetus for the introduction of the levy.

As a result, Ghana recorded a total of GHS500 billion from e-transactions in 2020 compared with GHS78 billion in 2016.

The government says the e-Levy proceeds will be used to support entrepreneurship, youth employment, cyber security, and digital and road infrastructure, among others.