Veteran Journalist and Managing Director of the Insight newspaper, Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jr, has claimed that the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning may not be able to convince Parliament to approve the 2023 budget he is preparing.
Kwesi Pratt’s assumption is founded on the fact that presently, all Members of Parliament (MPs) agree in principle that Ken Ofori-Atta should be removed.
The veteran Journalist therefore thinks it is quite unreasonable for the same Finance Minister to prepare and present a budget to a Parliament that does not support him.
“Let’s just even assume that the demand of the initial 80 Members of Parliament for the New Patriotic Party is not grounded in facts and is baseless. [But] it is still very strange that right now, all 275 MPs [have] agreed on a certain course of action.
And yet the President insists that this Minister [the Finance Minister] should lead the preparation of the budget and send the budget to this Parliament of 275 members who [have] all agreed that the Minister should not be where he is.”
Kwesi Pratt, Journalist
Kwesi Pratt further noted that an MP from the Majority side threatened the President that Parliamentarians will boycott Parliament on the day when the budget is read if Ofori-Atta is not dismissed before then.
“We have a Member of Parliament and that person is not an NDC Member of Parliament, [he] is an NPP Member of Parliament who has warned him [President Akufo-Addo] that the Finance Minister could get to Parliament and find an empty house.
“Now if the Finance Minister gets to Parliament and finds an empty house, he certainly cannot present the budget; there’s a quorum that has to be made before Parliamentary business can be [conducted].”
Kwesi Pratt, Journalist
He claimed that even though NPP MPs agreed to accede to President Akufo-Addo’s plea to allow Ofori-Atta stay until the IMF negotiations are over and the budget is read, “the Parliamentarians may not have shifted that much when it comes to their demands and the presentation of the budget as well.”
If Kwesi Pratt’s assumption is the case, then Government is headed for doom because, all Government are heavily reliant on MPs from their party to help them approve budgets.
Kwesi Pratt Baffled as Ofori-Atta Remains in Office
Meanwhile, the veteran Journalist was very surprised that the President has not dismissed Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta and the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen.
Kwasi Pratt argued that even though their removal will not necessarily turn Ghana’s economic woes around, it has become needful because almost all the major contributors to government success are calling for them to be removed.
“I don’t think that the removal of Ken Ofori-Atta and Charles Adu Boahen will substantially alter our [Ghana’s] economic predicament.
“However here is a situation where 275 Members of Parliament agree that this Minister has problems; that they don’t want to see him in that position. Beyond them, leading members of the NPP say this Minister has to go home, the President alone, is insisting that the Minister must stay at post.”
Kwesi Pratt, Jr
Kwesi Pratt said that it is worrying that the President insists that Ken Ofori-Atta leads the preparation of the budget and the presentation of same when it is crystal clear that all MPs to whom he will present the budget want him out of office.
Moreover, the veteran Journalist was even more intrigued about the fact that the President has decided to entrust the task of the preparation of the nations budget to someone who has been labelled as incompetent.
“If you look at the reasons why there is a clamour for the Minister to go home, one of those reasons is incompetence. So if it is incompetence then how can anybody insist that that same level of incompetence should be used in the preparation of the budget and submission of the budget to Parliament for approval.”
Kwesi Pratt, Journalist
“What can explain this; I’m so baffled by the President’s insistence that the Minister should stay at post,” Kwesi Pratt added.
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