Killer Budget Rejected By Parliament As Akufo Addo Junkets in Luxury Hotels, Luxury Jets

The height of incompetence of the Akufo Addo administration was on full display on Friday when, for the first time in the history of the Fourth Republic, its national Budget was thrown out by the Ghanaians Parliament for its absolutely poor quality. 

At the crucial moment when the MPs of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) were to debate and vote for the clumsily prepared killer budget to be passed, they abandoned the proceedings in Parliament, allowing the Minority from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to have the majority vote in the rejection on the 2022 fiscal plan for Ghana.

This means that the Finance Minister will have to prepare a brand new budget and hope that this time, it will not attract such opposition for many of its dubious and insensitive content.

The only other time that a national budget prepared by the finance minister was rejected by a Ghanaian Parliament was in 1979 during ertwhile Dr. Hilla Liman’s administration which was noted for its incompetence and was consequently ousted by the Jerry Rawlings-led coup d’état.

The signs had been clear, as the Minority had hinted that it will oppose the budget on account of nuisance taxes that it seeks to pile on Ghanaians, including the extremely unpopular e-levy also called the “Bawumia wicked tax,” which is purposed to exact a 1.75% tax on mobile money transactions.

Also, the Minority is demanding that the government makes allocation for the construction of the Keta Sea Defense project, something that Akufo-Addo has neglected to give attention to even though the people of the area have recently suffered serious tidal waves.

Lastly, the Minority noticed that Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta had smuggled the fraudulent Agyapa Royalty deal into the budget, despite the extensive revelations that the deal was being cooked at the Jubilee House by President Akufo Addo and his friends to appropriate Ghana’s mineral royalties.

Knowing that the contentious content of the budget will cause it to be torpedoed, the Majority had hoped they had the numbers to allow the budget to be passed. But they were faced with the dilemma that some of their members had travelled outside the country, including the MP for Dome-Kwabenya, Sarah Adwoa Sarfo and Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, the NPP parliamentarian for Akuapem North.

Whatsup News gathered that in desperation, the NPP Majority smuggled in some party footsoldiers to impersonate their missing MPs, but were quickly busted and thrown out of the lawmaking chamber. Seeing the hopelessness, the Majority walked out and gave the Minority the field day to reject the budget.

A hysterical Ken Ofori-Atta had put in an application to allow further consultation with the Majority before the final vote on the budget, but that attempt also failed as the Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Speaker, Alban Sumana Bagbin took a voice vote to quash the application.

After the application was out of the way, the House took the motion on the Floor whether to approve the Budget or to reject it. A headcount was promptly taken and the entire 137 MPs on the Minority NDC side voted against the budget.

Later in an address to the media, the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu indicated that they had taken the decision to walk out in solidarity with the Finance Minister who had had to be sent out of the Chamber to allow for a second voice vote on the Minister’s application.

Critics have argued that that was the lamest excuse ever given by the Majority leader. Because if they were confident in their budget, they would have braved all the odds to allow it to pass.

Following the fallout in Parliament, some NPP spokespersons are mulling the possibility of taking Parliament to the Supreme Court to overturn the decision. But experts have dismissed the move as wishful thinking because a precedent had already been set in a similar instance in 1979 when the Supreme Court concluded that the courts cannot dictate how Parliament went about its business, in accordance with Articles, 96, 99, 103 and 104. 

The implication of the rejection of the budget means that the Akufo Addo administration will have no financial plan on how to govern the country in 2022 unless the finance minister performs some sort of magic to complete a brand new budget before Parliament goes on Christmas break.

Meanwhile, while his government is literally collapsing under the incompetent showing in Parliament, President Akufo Addo is junketing in super-expensive private jets across the globe and sleeping in extremely expensive hotels.

In his latest trip to Atlanta-USA, the president is spending a whopping GHC 500,000 on a one-week hotel stay as well as renting a gold-plated private jet that cost the Ghanaians taxpayers almost US$ 20,000 every hour, even though, Ghana has a fully functional presidential Jet.

Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul recently justified the expensive private jet, saying the Presidential jet lacks an onboard bathroom that the President loves to serenade himself in anytime he flies long distances.