Member of Parliament for Bawku Central and one of the Minority MPs who filed an injunction against the E-levy, Mahama Ayariga, has intimated that he disagrees with the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the injunction application that sought to stop the implementation of the E-levy.
Commenting on the court’s decision, Mr. Ayariga stated that although the decision does not sit well with the applicants, they have to accept and respect the decision of the court.
“The court gave their reasons and we proceeded on the premise that the property right of citizens is being threatened here by the state taking their monies from them. The Supreme Court responded to us saying that, to the extent that this is the law that was passed in Parliament, they will presume that it was properly passed until we are able to prove that it was irregularly and unconstitutionally enacted.”
Mahama Ayariga
According to Mahama Ayariga, the controlling consideration of the court was that the respondent which is government, will suffer more hardship as such, it had to dismiss the injunction application.
“And they took the position that if they granted our application and restrict GRA from collecting the money, if subsequently we don’t win the case, GRA would have lost the opportunity to ever collect those monies.
“But if they granted the prayer of the respondent being government, and GRA keeps proper record of all the monies they have collected, if it turns out that we win the case and the government loses because the records are with GRA, the court can order GRA to refund the monies to all those citizens whose monies were deducted during transfers. Whereas, if they restraint GRA and they don’t collect the money and in 3-4 months time we lose, all these transactions would have gone without any opportunity to collect those monies.”
Mahama Ayariga
Minority focused on constitution being respected
Answering how their case can be made known without the country losing the necessary revenue, Mahama Ayariga stated that it’s not the Minority’s objective to stop the country from raising the needed revenue. He stated that it’s not their responsibility to know how GRA collects or do not collect taxes but they are focused on making sure that the constitution is respected, hence the application for the injunction.
“All we are saying and asking is that if you want to pass the bill, you need a majority of all members of Parliament and we were contending that there wasn’t a majority of the members present in the chamber that day and therefore the decision was unconstitutional.”
Mahama Ayariga
Mahama Ayariga indicated that despite the current court ruling, they are ready to go ahead with the substantive case. He intimated that it will give the judges more insight into parliamentary practices.
“I believe that because none of them is a Member of Parliament, they are not too conversant with parliamentary practice. So, what they didn’t understand was the attachment of the record of votes and proceedings relating to the day when the E-levy was deemed to have been passed.”
Mahama Ayariga
The Bawku Central MP further indicated that the determination of the substantive matter will require that the court goes into the internal mechanics of how Parliament works in bringing a finality to the case.
“That is what we should all wait for. If they go into the internal mechanics and they say it doesn’t matter, once people come in the morning and write their names and they even go to Kumasi, and then there is evidence that at the time when the vote was being taken, he was in Kumasi but there was a quorum, Ghanaians are all there to bear witness to what the supreme court says is the law.”
Mahama Ayariga
Mr. Ayariga explained that there is a quorum for conducting parliament business and a quorum for voting on decisions. He asserted that the vote and proceedings record doesn’t relate to the quorum at the time that a decision was going to be taken. “Our contention is that, at the time where a decision is going to be taken, there is the need to check whether there is the quorum to take that decision.”
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