Month: July 2019

Member of Parliament for Ho Central Benjamin Kpodo has said President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government should cut down on government’s expenditure if it really want to experience growth in Ghana’s economy.

According to the Ho Central legislator, government machinery is too huge with one hundred and ten Ministers, every Minister would take salaries.

He further added that these Ministers have four wheel drives, salon cars, “looking at the Presidential staffers they are almost one thousand, this are areas government can cut down” he said.

How can we go ahead with working on a national ID for one point two billion dollars, that is about five billion Ghana cedis for Ghana card, he said in an interview as the debate on the Mid -Year review had started on the floor of the House.

He however expressed joy that government brought to Parliament for approval, a fiscal device at point of sales, “that is something that can bring in revenue and you saw that it had a bye partisan approval”.

Again with this, SMEs would not be able to under declare their turn over’s out of this, which taxes would be levied and collected; these are measures which would attract bi-partisan support whether it is NPP or NDC.

“We do not need to impose new taxes because it would bring hardship to Ghanaians, rather the focus should be on efficiently colleting the old taxes widening the net”, he lamented.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu has said with well resources and able staff, Parliament would be able to do more than it is doing now.

He questioned to what extend had Members of Parliament and their working staffs, made the institution more transparent and accountable to the people.

For a stronger democracy, we need stronger committees and research department as well as a Hansard department, that would provide timely and accurate information of proceedings of Parliament, he said.

“You cannot afford to fail us, one of our weaknesses in Parliament has been when some colleague MPs rise and say I quote, without given reference to the book for person they are quoting from but expect to be featured in by the Hansard department”.

He urged that academic referencing should be respected adequately for the purpose of the hansand department to capture ideas which are not from MPs, “we need to pay royal acknowledgement to people with the original ideas.

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu make this remarks at the opening of a week-long celebration of inter departmental research and information group of Parliament.

He further called on Parliament to make the best out of information technology (IT) and added that IT can be a threat if not properly handled, “we should work out for MPs and those who visit Parliament to have access to a free Wi-Fi.

“Especially the young persons who visit the House can acknowledge and say when I visited Parliament, I was able to access free Wi-Fi to work with”, he pointed out.

Again we need to work strongly on our achieves, in other to be able to preserve history since the inception of Ghana’s Parliamentary democracy, the contribution of Members of Parliament, we need to keep those contribution alive, he said.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ ghanamps.com