The Speaker of Parliament Alban Sumana KingsfordBagbin has said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) risks losing the 2024 elections should the E-levy be passed.
Speaker Bagbin made this pronouncement when he addressed former Members of Parliament(MPs) at a forum Thursday.
He said “as you go around convincing Ghanaians to vote for your party and you, others with big pockets are facilitating for your parties and when you win power, they get the positions not you. So they don’t have that culture, they don’t have that understanding and there is that missing link.
They come to impose their ideas on you to put party interest first not Ghana first and we always vote ourselves out of power which my colleagues in NPP are doing so don’t be surprised if the next election you don’t win”.
“Yes it’s very clear if this your e-levy goes through you have lost the election,” he said emphatically.
The Speaker absorbed himself of any blame in relation to the brawl that ensued in Parliament on Monday over the e-levy.
“I can give you a copy of my closing remarks which when I was leaving I passed through my Usher to give to them. It was after 10 in the night and I had to go and take a rest because you delayed in sitting, I had to compel the house to sit after 2 and decided and said let’s discuss e-levy, you say no, vary the order of business, I kept on varying the order of business, we did about 6 important items, approving other loans until I had to hand over getting to 6: 30 to the first Deputy Speaker now they say I refuse to preside that is why some numbers were not in the house.”
He continued” I’m not a Chief whip of any political party, I’m not entitled to bring members to the house, that’s not my duty. I am to preside and apply the rules and I’ve applied them fairly, according to my understanding through literature, through experience”.
It could be remembered that the Majority in Parliament on Monday indicated that they cannot find the Speaker of Parliament who was expected to preside over sitting on the day to ensure that e-levy is passed on certificate of urgency.
The first Deputy Speaker Joe Osei-Owusu had to preside over the sitting but had to hand over to the Second Deputy but this degenerated into a brawl between the Majority and the Minority in the house which has widely been condemned.