The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Asiedu Nketia, has intimated that the Speaker of Parliament is not mandated to engage in government business but to serve as an umpire during deliberations on the floor of the House.

“The Speaker has done absolutely nothing wrong because there are people who are reneging on their responsibility and they want a scapegoat and they blame the Speaker, the Minority and everybody but themselves,” he said.

He indicated that Parliament took decisions by majority vote and “if the Majority cannot approve of anything with their 138 Members of Parliament, there was no need to blame people since the Speaker, Alban Bagbin was not the problem and could not be blamed.

According to him, the statements issue by the Majority were borne out of mischief and ignorance because the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has 138 MPs, which made them Majority in Parliament and wondered the delay in deliberating on the e-levy.

This comes after Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh described Mr Bagbin’s frequent absence, especially during critical decisions in the Chamber as worrying but barely a week into Legislative proceedings, he was due to travel for another check-up.

This practice, Mr Annoh-Dompreh explained, should be reviewed for productive alternative that would benefit the country and the Legislative arm of government.
However, Mr Nketia alleged that some NPP MPs were against the levy hence leadership was having tough time putting them together for discussion and voting in the House adding that “the NPP MPs themselves do not think e-levy is a good thing, the reason leadership was unable to get all the 138 members to vote.

“Both sides’ have 137 members each which can bring the House to another feuding moment and cannot blame anyone for delay in having the Electronic Levy bill (e-Levy) passed since resumption of Parliament in 2022 the House is expecting the government to discuss it and subsequent voting.

“But, it is the government that delayed the discussion; moving the decision from one day to another till the Speaker has to seek medical attention, he was available all week, it has been announced e-levy will be discussed January 25 and the Speaker was in the House from 25 to 29 but to no avail,” Mr Nketia decried.