Alban Bagbin
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban S.K. Bagbin, says the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is voting itself out of power with some of its policies.
He explained that NPP will lose the 2024 general elections if it manages to get the electronic transaction levy, commonly known as the e-levy bill passed.
The passage of the electronic levy has been the subject of controversy in Parliament, of which voting led to open brawl twice in the house with the latest incident happening on Monday, December 21, 2021.
But the Speaker of Parliament on Thursday, December 23, 2021, at a meeting with old parliamentarians, advised the NPP to reconsider the levy to save the party from losing the next general elections.
The Speaker indicates that governing parties always vote themselves out of power because they fail to listen to the masses, emphatically saying that he won’t be surprised should the NPP lose the 2024 general elections.
“As you go around trying to convince Ghanaians to vote for you and your party, others with big pockets are facilitating your parties and when you win power, they get the positions, not you. So they don’t have that understanding, so there is that missing link.”
“So they come to impose their ideas on you to rather take party interest first not Ghana first, and we always vote ourselves out of power, which my colleagues in the NPP are doing now. So don’t be surprised in the next election, if they don’t win. It is very clear that if this e-levy goes through, they have lost the election.”
Touching on the recent brawl in Parliament, Speaker Bagbin said he has also rejected any blame, noting that as Speaker, he has worked with the leadership of the house to conduct business and to apply the rules fairly.
“Now they say I refused to preside and that is why some numbers were not in the house. I am not a Chief Whip of any of the caucuses in the house and I am also not entitled to bring members to the house. That is not my duty.”
“I am to preside and apply the rules and I have applied them fairly according to my understanding through literature and experience and I am not even sure that the members listened to what I read that day about the rules,” he mentioned.
By Vincent Kubi