Month: July 2018

A senior member of the Finance Committee and Member of Parliament for Ho Central, Benjamin Kpodo has said the Minority’s roundtable breakfast about government’s intention to increase taxes was not a deception.

According to the Ho Central MP if the Minority had not raised issues about the intended plans of government to increase taxes they would have done that.

“We are matching them on the way they behave, “if you recollect they wanted to tax mobile money, we raise it they went quickly and denied it and so they did not carry it out”, he said.

Again they wanted to take common fund money meant for the Assemblies, use it to support planting for food and jobs, they came to the floor and said they had not done it, meanwhile prior to their coming to floor, we had letters issued to that effect by the Coordinating Council to the Assemblies, he lamented.

“They should adjust their budget to make provision for the planting for food and Job and school feeding, we got wind of these issues we raise the them, if they test the waters and see that it would not be good for the public they review their decision”.

What we said was not a deception, if you visit the International Monetary Fund (IMF) website government had this agreement for tax increase, but had to go for a second thought because we had raised the issue, he said.

“Every politician is looking for survival, they retracted to keep faith with the Ghanaian population”, pointed out.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Parliament would today start debate on the Mid-Year review budget presented to the House last week Thursday by the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta.

Member of Parliament for Ho Central Benjamin Kpodo in an interview with ghanamps.com has said Ghanaians should expect a detailed explanation of what was presented to the House and understanding of how the economy is being managed.

Both the Majority and the Minority would have time to debate the 68 page document presented to the House.

As to whether the views being expressed by the Minority they are playing politics with the economy of Ghana, the Ho Central legislator said “no, we are saying that there are other avenue which we can enhance our revenue and there are other areas we can cut down on our expenditure”.

Mr. Benjamin Kpodo further noted that as a nation we have passed laws imposing several taxes, but what measures are we putting in place to collect all these taxes, it is one difficulty as a nation, “it did not start from this current government”, he lamented.

Property tax is one huge source of income for Ghana, but do we collect it from everybody, the appropriate amount is not collected from those who qualify to pay, he said.

And cited an example of Managing Director of Dalex Financial Service, who had requested the local Assembly in his areas to come for a property from him, it had been over a year nobody had attempted to collect the property tax.

Again there is a lot of money out there, the service sector of the economy is heavily under taxed, simply because we do not go out there to collect the money, hotels and restaurants they do not pay the appropriate taxes.

“We should find innovative ways of collecting these taxes in the system, we do not new laws, let us implement the existing ones”, he lamented.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram Samuel Nartey George is lamenting over the delay in the review of the standing orders which Speaker Professor Mike Aaron Oquaye had promise it would be worked on during the life time of the seven Parliament of the fourth Republic.

According to the Ningo-Prampram legislator the review has taking too long passing a decade, where there are challenges that the standing order needs to address.

He further lamented that time given for committees to do their work is not enough and gave example of the United States of America where, a committee of senate takes sometimes two or three days to interrogate an issue.

Again the Vice Presidents grand plan of opening up the economy through the digital address system falls under communications committee, “we do not have much time to interrogate at the committee level and the media needs to do a critical work”, he said.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Former Deputy Minister of the Interior and Ranking member on Defense and Interior, James Agalga is calling for an independent probe into the killing of seven persons in Kumasi by the police.

The incident happened a few days after armed robbers shot and killed a policeman and injured another in the same vicinity.

According to the former Deputy Interior Minister, subsequently after the killing relatives of the deceased have come out to say they were not arm robbers, and the mix reactions that followed calls for transparent investigation, and not the one that should be left in the confines of the Ghana Police Service.

“I sort to do to invite the Speaker to summon the Minister of the Interior to appear before the House and take instructions, the speaker thinks the forum I chose was not appropriate he thinks I should rather have a statement made on the floor so I have accordingly taken that on board”, he said in an interview.

The Defense and Interior Committee is well placed to look into this issue; more over we have oversight responsibilities and the Ghana Police Service is part of the Executive arm of government, he added.

He further called for Parliamentary enquiry into the killing and pointed out that as things stands now to start with, the police investigating this issue would not get the needed confidence.

Again there could be an independent expects on security matters who would be commissioned to investigate the Kumasi shooting incident.

Mr. James Agalga called for the establishment of an independent police complains commission that would deal with situations like this.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

As encroachers are developing around the Accra-Tema Motorway to become a full-blown slum, Roads and Highway Minister Kwesi Amoako Atta has told Parliament through a public private partnership (PPP) arrangement, the Accra-Tema motorway is to be redeveloped.

According to the Minister his Ministry through the Ghana Highway Authority under a PPP arrangement has appointed a transaction advisor who has identified the project affected persons within the right of way.

He added that the transaction advisor had already submitted a resettlement action plan and the associated cost of the payment and compensation.

The Ministry of Roads and Highways, subsequent to the report of the Transaction Advisor would request for funds from the Ministry of Finance to settle payments and compensations.

As part of the expansion of the carriageway to three lanes on either side, physical barriers would be built to secure the right of way.

This came to light when the Member of Parliament for Mion Mohammed Abdul-Aziz wanted to know steps being taken to prevent the motorway from becoming a full-blown slum.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

As the debate rages on, on the need to open up Parliaments committees up for members of the Public and the media, Ningo Prampram legislator Samuel Nartey George has added his voice to the debate calling for the need to open up committee meetings to the media.

According to the Ningo-Prampram lawmaker the 275 MPs are not in Parliament on their own accord, they are representing the people of Ghana.

He further argued that he had made it clear to his colleagues that the issue of cost when committee meetings are open up is not an issue because, the state broadcaster Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) is more into commercial service than public service.

And backed his point with an example of a public hearing of the Public Account Committee (PAC), where GBC was not around to cover, but a private media house like multimedia and the other television and radio stations were around to broadcast the activities of PAC.

When the private media cover our independence celebration is that not public service, so let us open our committee meetings to the media for them to cover at their own cost he said. He made the call at Prampram during a media training for new members of the Parliamentary Press corps.

Mr. Samuel Nartey George further added that, Parliamentary Service Board can ensure that a page is created for Parliament on facebook where proceedings could be carried live, the only thing to buy would be internet bundle.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com