NDC Minority In Parliament  Will Use Force To Prevent  E-Levy Bill From Being Passed Asiedu Nketia Fires Salvos

Mr. Asiedu Nketia stressed that "If slapping Deputy Speaker will make him do the right thing in connection of argument which rocked the controversial E-Levy Bill, so be to.

NDC Minority In Parliament  Will Use Force To Prevent  E-Levy Bill From Being Passed Asiedu Nketia Fires Salvos
The General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has stated that the NDC minority Members of Parliament (MP) will continue to resist attempts by the majority in parliament to pass the controversial E-levy bill.
According to the NDC scribe, the NPP MPs in parliament will use any force possible to prevent the controversial bill from being passed.
“So long as impunity will not stop, resistance has been imposed on us as a duty. if a deputy speaker decides to vote and at the same time play the role of a referee, if slapping him will make him do the right thing, don’t hesitate” he told the Ashanti regional youth wing of the NDC in Kumasi on Sunday, February 6, 2022.
Mr. Asiedu Nketiah charged the supporters in the Ashanti region to adopt a winning attitude since, according to him, that is the surest way of winning the 2024 elections.
“NPP won Hohoe because they adopted a winning attitude although, we know a lot of things didn’t go down well,” he said.
He also called for party unity saying “factions are affecting the NDC in the Ashanti region; the camp syndrome is affecting the party in the region and must stop immediately you need to stick together to wrestle power from your main opponent” he told party supporters.
Ashanti regional chairman of the party also admonished the rank and file of the party to unite for victory.
“It is very clear the NPP has failed woefully and now everybody is calling for a change,” he told William Evans-Num.
Mr. Asiedu Nketia’s comments come at a time stakeholders have said they do not expect fisticuffs in Parliament again as happened during the first session of the 8th Parliament last year.
For instance, Information Minister, Mr. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, urged Members of Parliament especially the opposition lawmakers not to physically obstruct the process in the House even if they strongly disagree on an issue.
He said MPs are allowed to disagree with the government on any issue but they must commit themselves to a civil, mature process of resolving the disagreements.
He said this while answering a question as to whether the fights in Parliament over the E-levy policy proposal in the 2022 budget will taint Ghana’s image on the international market, during a press conference addressed by Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta in Accra on Wednesday, January 19.
The Ofoase Ayirebi lawmaker said “I think colleagues, you have to help us speak some truth to ourselves. Chaos is not a way of resolving disagreements. There is nothing wrong with parliamentarians disagreeing on a particular measure on the table. The rule says that when we disagree we debate to try and convince one another, we can have conversations and engagements like the Minister has done throughout, and then when we finish, we subject it to a vote.
“In this country, on the 7th of December every four years, before that, we may disagree on who should be president, we don’t fight about it. We allow people to campaign and debate and in the end we all queue up and vote, they count and take the decision that where the Majority went is where Ghana wants to go.
“That way, chaos does not ensue, international market and everybody else looks at us as a civilized, mature Republic.
“It is the same thing we have to do in Parliament. There is nothing wrong with disagreements, there have been various disagreements in times past, one side may say I don’t agree, I am going to walk out, I do t agree I am going to abstain, I don’t agree I am going to vote against it.
“But to begin to physically obstruct the process is something all of us collectively must speak against. It is not, will you go and beg them, will you go and negotiate, no. We must speak the truth that physically obstructing the process, imagines somebody going to physically go to obstruct voting on the election day in this country, we will agree that that is not the right thing to do," she said.