Three new taxes were passed by Parliament on Friday, March 31 to aid the government’s quest to facilitate the Board Approval for the $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) Programme staff-level agreement.[ads2]
The new taxes; the Excise Duty Amendment Bill 2022, the Growth and Sustainability Levy Bill, 2022, the Ghana Revenue Authority Bill 2022 and the Income Tax Amendment Bill 2022 were passed after a voting exercise by the MPs.
Since the passage of the taxes, the Minority in Parliament have been heavily criticised for not providing a stiffer opposition.[ads3]
But the member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Sam George has come to the defense of the Minority, stating that the clerks in Parliament have some questions to answer on how they went about Friday’s head count.
“If we had acquiesced we wouldn’t have gone through the vote, we wouldn’t have accounted for our 136, we wouldn’t have challenged what appeared to be an error in counting. We are aware now that at the time we did the first count Ahmed Tuferu was not in Parliament.
“There are two [majority] MPs who also walked in after the clerks had finished taking the vote from the majority side, so clearly, that vote shouldn’t have read 136, 137, but be that as it may, the Speaker only announces what it is presented to him,” he said on Citi TV.[ads4]
He added that “the clerks have a question to answer as to how they managed to get 137.”
Meanwhile, the financial bills seek to raise about 4 billion Ghana Cedis annually as part of domestic revenue mobilisation.[ads5]
