Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has shot down claims that embattled Assin North MP, James Gyakye Quayson, was absent in parliament on the day of the passage of the E-levy on his own volition.
According to him, his absence in parliament was as a result of the strategies by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the legal machinations which are currently ongoing.
“Hon Gyakye Quayson is a nice gentleman and really loved and he is not someone who will miss parliament for no reason. He is not reckless and not a kubolor like we say in our local parlance. But there are some schemes by the NPP
“First of all, on the voting day on the 29th March, he was before the High Court on some of those criminal charges against him and it was all part of the strategy by the Majority to stop him,” he said.
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Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen show Thursday, Mr Ablakwa said the lawyers even advised him to be careful and not go into the chamber as his lawyers were in court filing papers to appeal a Cape Coast High Court decision that he should not hold himself as an MP.
That decision was to protect him on the voting day.
“We did not want him to be in contempt of court as far as his cases were concerned, and so his lawyers were filing some papers to see how at least he can have some safeguard and so let the records show that it is because of the legal machinations that kept him out of Parliament, hence reducing our numbers to 136,” he said.
The NDC MP called out the incumbent government over what he described as their “stubborn insensitivity” in getting the Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy) passed.
After months of back and forth, parliament, without the Minority in attendance, passed the E-Levy on Tuesday, March 29, 2022.
Although the Minority had always kicked against the levy, it staged a walkout from parliament just before the controversial document was passed, giving reasons later to the effect that it did so to show they stand with Ghanaians.
But reacting to their decision, the MP said that the extent to which the government, led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, went to get this unpopular levy passed, was a testament to their insensitivity.
