The Executive Director for Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs, Dr Rashid Dramani says the Minister for Finance, Mr Ken Ofori Atta should have engaged the Minority in Parliament before the voting day to prevent the events which occurred last Friday.
According to him, the timing was wrong for the Minister to engage the minority on the budget.
The 2022 budget statement was on Friday rejected by the country’s Parliament after a heated debate.
The rejection was made possible after all 137 Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) voted against the motion on Friday while members of the Majority Caucus had abandoned their seats in protest against alleged bias on the part of the Speaker of Parliament.
Prior to the crucial voting, the Speaker had called for a head count to establish if the House had form a quorum in order to proceed.
The Finance Minister, who was present in the house, to prayed the house’s permission for some time to engage leadership of both the minority and majority before the question is put to the house for approval or rejection.
But the House subsequently rejected the minister’s prayer, and also voted against the motion for the approval of the budget, in the absence of the majority group who staged a walk out form the house.
Read Also: 2022 Budget rejected, Majority Caucus walk out
Speaking on Atinka TV’s morning show, Ghana Nie with Ekourba Gyasi Simpremu, Dr Rashid Dramani said,”The Minister for Finance was in Parliament to build a consensus, I will commend him for that, that has to be a continuous process but the consensus that he sought to build was very late in the day, that was not the moment. The moment the vote was going to be cast was not the moment to build consensus, that should have been done way before.”
He added that, “As soon as he presented his budget, there were concerns from the minority side, so maybe he should have engaged them earlier and then we would have averted the situation on that day.”
Moving forward, Dr Rashid Dramani recommended that the Minister engages the Minority so that they can have a consensus before parliament sits on the matter again.
“The Minister would have to engage the other side or he might not be able to get this budget passed the way it is. The other side would also have to consider and give in, in terms of certain aspects of their demand, they cannot get all their demands, so that at the end of the day, we have a win win and we move on as a country,” he added.
Ghana| Atinkaonline.com| Porcia Oforiwaa Ofori
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