Parliament budget cut is power play because Bagbin is not for governing party – Jantuah

The failure of the government to release funds to Parliament is clearly a power play situation that is ongoing, private legal practitioner, Mr Kwame Jantuah, has said.

According to him, because the Speaker, Alban Bagbin is not from the governing party, efforts are being made by the government to frustrate him.

“There could be power because the Speaker is not from the ruling party. Right now, the Speaker says there is no money, so how is government business will go on?” he said on the New Day show on TV3 with Johnnie Hughes on Friday May 27.

Mr Jantuah’s comments come after the Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin said the legislature does not have money at the moment to run most of its programmes.

Mr Bagbin said on Thursday May 26 that Parliament will be running on some arrears of last year.

He described the situation as not easy.

He said on the floor of the House that “What many of you don’t know is that even as at this time we don’t have any releases from the Ministry of Finance for us to run Parliament.

“So we will be running Parliament on some arrears of last year, it is not easy. Sometimes we see your request for me to approve for you to do some things I declined. It is not because I love declining your request, it is because we don’t have the wherewithal fund those operations.

He further said Parliament is an arm of government and should not be treated as part of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA).

“I think the Ministry of Finance should not treat Parliament like this a Ministry or MDA. I will emphasize this again, this is an arm of government, we are not part of the MMDAS. We have even been written to reduce our budget in some areas by 50 per cent. If they want Parliament to run aground, they should let us know.

“The Speaker is not ready and prepared to be blamed for the inability to get Parliament going on just because we are not getting the necessary funding.”

Mr Jantuah further said “without parliament working the Executive wont also have it smoothly unless they bypass Parliament. This is something that shouldn’t have even come out.

“The President should have called the Finance Minister and the Speaker into a meeting and resolve this.”

He added “The Finance Minister should quickly come and give explanation and how he wants to resolve.”

Source: 3news.com|Ghana