The Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, has suggested that parliamentarians who engage in brawling in the House must lose their privileges.
Mr. Annoh-Dompreh, averred that MPs caught engaging in fisticuffs must be prosecuted duly.
“I will insist, if this thing [fighting in Parliament] happens again, that all the people involved must face the full rigours of the law. They must be treated as any criminal anywhere and all these MPs [who engage] in such acts must lose their privileges.”
Frank Annoh-Dompreh
According to Annoh Dompreh, if the MPs continue in this lane, they will not have the grounds to go to Ghanaians and ask them to vote for them again.
“If anybody in the Majority gets that dirty, they should face the full rigours of the law. We expect the Minority to be civil. We’re not expecting them to sing our praises to agree with everything we put across, but let’s have some decorum, let’s have some civility.”
Frank Annoh-Dompreh
The Majority Chief Whip urged his colleague Members of Parliament to have some respect for the conscience of the Ghanaian people who mandated them to come to the chamber.
It can be recalled that MPs shouted at one another and engaged in open fighting in Parliament on the evening of 20th December 2021 as the First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu, left his seat to cast his vote to pass the controversial E-Levy under a certificate of urgency.
Although both sides of the House have condemned the incident, Parliament is yet to punish any MP that was involved in the act.
Silence of Presidency
Meanwhile, a private legal practitioner, Kwame Jantuah, has expressed disappointment over what he describes as the seeming silence of the Office of the President regarding the E-Levy impasse in Parliament.
“The President and his Vice have been silent on this matter and I don’t understand why. In situations like this, I want to listen to his words. Even if he won’t speak, he should act as referee.”
Kwame Jantuah
According to Mr. Jantuah, it’s an embarrassing moment about what’s happening in Parliament and he believes that it will happen again. He stated that he is not for the politicization of E-Levy but the sad thing about it is that, the Minister of Finance is trying to make the E-levy a patriotic issue while it’s not a patriotic issue.
Mr. Jantuah further called on the government to come clear on what it intends doing if the E-Levy is not passed to correct the erroneous impression that the economy will collapse without the E-Levy.
“Are they saying that if they don’t get E-Levy, they won’t undertake projects and the economy will collapse? In any case, they’re supposed to make sure the economy doesn’t collapse. What’s the plan B for E-Levy? And is it true that if we don’t get E-Levy, the economy will collapse or they’re just trying to frighten us?”
Kwame Jantuah
Mr. Jantuah’s comments come after the Minority in Parliament on Friday, January 28, 2022 rejected a reduction of the Electronic Transaction Levy to 1.5% from 1.75% after further consultation.
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