News:
November 25, 2015
Debate on the 2016 Budget is expected to begin today in Parliament.
The debate is expected to be heated as the Majority side is expected to highlight the positives in the document, while the Minority punches holes in the achievements and critically scrutinize the projections made by the government.
The debate on the budget is expected to last for about two weeks.
However Veteran Journalist and Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr has predicted that the conduct of government business in Parliament, especially, work on the 2016 budget is likely to face challenges in the month of December.
According to him, the huge number of Members of Parliament on the side of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who lost in the party’s recent parliamentary primaries will likely boycott sittings out of anger.
A total of 26 legislators on the Majority side in Parliament including its deputy Majority Leader, Alfred Agbesi and First Deputy Majority Chief Whip, Hajia Mary Boforo, were defeated much to the surprise of many.
The ruling party had earlier scheduled its primaries to be held a week before the presentation of the 2016 Budget in Parliament and its subsequent approval by the House.
That programming was criticized by political watchers including Mr Kwesi Pratt who thought it was politically suicidal, as the government side in Parliament will need its full complement of numbers to pass the budget.
Speaking on Peace FM on Tuesday, Mr Pratt said that the NDC should have held it primaries very far away from the month in which an important programme on government’s calendar such as the budget was to be read.
“The timing for the primaries was so wrong. How do we expect 26 MPs who are peeved after losing their seats in the primaries, returning to Parliament just a week after the elections to take part in the debate of the 2016 Budget and its approval?”
“We are talking about a Parliament where there is high level of absenteeism. You are going into the debate of the Budget already limping on one leg. What kind of political strategy is this? The strategy is so wrong; I just don’t know who gave the NDC that advice.”
Ghanamps.gov.gh