Yusif Sulemana, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Bole-Bamboi Constituency in the Savannah Region, has urged his colleagues on the Minority side not to trigger any parliamentary action against absentee MPs but focus on rejecting the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) Bill.
According to him, they should instead continue to focus their attention onrejecting the controversial E-Levy bill, which the government is bent on having passed into law.
“Those of us on the Minority side are not happy about her absence and what we know is that we are 137 and are ready to vote against the controversial E-Levy anytime, any day and we have listened to other Ghanaians and have decided to do what is in their best interest which is to reject the levy,” Mr Sulemana noted.
Sarah Adwoa Safo,the MP for Dome-Kwabenya Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, has been the subject of criticisms from some of her colleagues for absenting herself from Parliament since the current Parliament started sitting.
They accuse her of holding the Majority Caucus to ransom, considering the numbers needed to pass the E-Levy bill and she is alleged to have requested to be made the Deputy Majority Leader in Parliament, a position she held in the previous Parliament and had decided not to attend Parliamentary business because her demand had been turned down.
Per the 1992 Constitution and parliamentary procedure, an MP who is absent from Parliament for more than 15 days can be hauled before the Privileges Committee, which can lead to the seat being declared vacant.
“I will not advise any Minority MP to raise an issue over the absence of one of the members of the House because I have heard members of the Majority state they are going to trigger parliamentary processes to remove her and if that is what they want to do, we will only listen to what the Speaker has to say and advise ourselves,” Mr Sulemana said.
He indicated that focusing on absentee MPs to have their parliamentary seats declared vacant could derail Minority Caucus attention to reject the E-Levy bill to disappoint the section of the citizenry who are opposed to it. –citinewsroom.com
