Parliament has adjourned its proceedings to January 18, 2022, without concluding on the controversial and unpopular 1.75% electronic transaction tax (e-Levy) that the Government is trying to ram down the throats of Ghanaians.
The application for adjournment had been moved by Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who had urged the House to adjourn to allow time to heal broken tempers over the nationally rejected e-Levy.
In supporting the motion for adjournment, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu said that such a move will also allow for further consultations on the controversial E-levy.
Debate on the explosive new tax has turned physically violent throwing the entire lawmaking chamber into a free-for-all brawl between parliamentarians from the side of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
That unpopular tax being introduced by the Akufo Addo administration has sharply split Ghana’s hung Parliament, where the minority with an equal number of representatives had rejected the entire 2022 budget that captures the e-levy.
The Minority will later stage a palace coup when the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Bagbin went on a trip to Dubai for medical attention. The Majority which technically has an equal parliamentary seat as the Majority will quickly push the Deputy Speaker, Joe Osei-Owusu who is also an NPP MP to convene the house and overturn the earlier decision concluded by the House under the substantive Speaker.
Joe Osei Owusu will proceed to illegally vote on behalf of the retrogressive motion despite being the referee because otherwise, the Majority would not have made up the required tally for at least half of the House voting for such a motion to be considered valid in any way.
Indeed, there was a likelihood that the NPP smuggled in an impostor to vote on behalf of Sarah Adwoa Sarfo, the MP for Dome-Kwabenya who had reportedly been on a trip in the USA at the time.
On Monday night, the House the controversy escalated when the lawmaking chamber had descended into a jungle-mania of blows, hooks and punches with NDC and NPP MPs dishing it out to one another in free-for-all fisticuffs.
According to many post-bout analysts, the Sports Minister, Mustafa Yusif, was the most battered in the fight with heavy blows and punches landing on his face and mouth.
The disgraceful spectacle has left Parliament looking even more primitive, with past incidents, including the snatching of ballot papers by Tema West MP, Carlos Ahenkorah, the invasion of the legislature by soldiers at the command of Defense Minister, Dominic Nitiwul and the recent shameful spectacle of a one-sided NPP Majority, forming a rogue Parliament to overturn a rejection of the 2022 budget.
As the Ghanaian Parliament continues to soil itself publicly, there are fears that the country’s democracy is in trouble, with compounding accusations that President Akufo-Addo has despotically hijacked the country’s democracy by filling up the Electoral Commission (EC) with pro-NPP commissioners and the Judiciary with NPP-loyal judges.
