Patrick Yaw Boamah, the vice chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance, has said an entire revision for the 2022 Budget will have dire repercussions for the country’s economy.
His comments come after the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu said the quashing of an earlier decision by Parliament and approval of the 2022 Budget on (Tuesday 30 November) was null and void.
Speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show with Nana Yaa Mensah on Thursday (2 December) the MP for Okaikoi Central said “We work within a calendar year, we need to close the year and begin the ensuing year knowing the target that the Finance Minister has set for all the revenue agencies, other compensation, interest payment etc are known to the investor community.”
“We cannot wait until next year or for the Finance Minister to go and revise the budget and come like what I have heard some people say that he should withdraw the budget.. we will be shutting down the doors of this economy and the consequences we cannot bear.”
He added, “So we have to make sure we approve the estimates and work through the appropriation bill and have a clearer way forward for the economy.”
Majority erred in approving budget
Richard Amoako Baah, a political scientist, has said that the events of Tuesday 30 November 2021 in Parliament where the Majority, in the absence of the Minority, overturned the rejection of the 2022 Budget and then approved it is null and void.
On Tuesday a sitting of Parliament, made up mainly of the members of the Majority, quashed the rejection of the government’s economic policy for 2022 and voted to approve the Budget Statement.
The First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu, who presided over the sitting, says the decision the House took to reject the 2022 Budget on 26 November is not valid, because it did not satisfy the provision in the Standing Orders which stipulates that one-half of members must be present to take such decisions.
Awaiting Bagbin
However, speaking to Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin on Tuesday, Amoako Baah said that there will be a proper resolution of the matter when the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, returns to the country.
He argued that the Majority in Parliament erred in deciding to approve the 2022 Budget without the Minority.
“If you want to go ahead and do that [going against the constitution on parliamentary procedures], go ahead and do it; you’re putting yourself in peril, because that thing [overturning the rejection and approval of the 2022 Budget] is null and void.
“And so, the only option left is to wait for the Speaker to come back and then [the First Deputy Speaker will] step down as Deputy Speaker and vote.
“That’s what I think, because I’m not looking at parliamentary standing orders, I’m looking at the constitution,” Amoako Baah said.
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