Parliament has passed a motion on a loan agreement between the government and the German government for an amount of €20million.
The facility is expected to finance the Green Credit Line, an initiative under the Reform and Investment Partnership between the two countries which would help cut down on carbon emissions.
In a Twitter post on Tuesday, the Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh said the adoption of the motion “comes as a boost to the government’s efforts in the clean energy sector.”
Today, Parliament passed a motion to activate a €20m facility from the German govt to finance the Green Credit Line. This is critical to refinancing renewable energy & energy-efficient investments for MSMEs & households in Ghana.
“This is critical to refinancing renewable energy and energy efficiency investments for MSMEs and households in Ghana. We must diversify our energy sources to provide consistent power supply to support our industrial objectives,” he said.
This comes after the motion was scuttled last week over the lack of quorum for decision-making.
The Minority MPs raised concerns after the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Kwaku Kwarteng, had presented his committee’s report on the facility on Thursday.
Their concern was about quorum under Articles 102 and 104 based on the judgment by the Supreme Court, which gave Deputy Speakers voting rights while presiding.
They argued that the numbers in the House did not meet the threshold of half of all MPs to enable decision-making.
According to the NDC MPs, the apex court, through the judgment, has reversed the ‘Parliament is the master of its own rules’ mantra, and thus proceedings could not continue on the agreement.
But Adansi Asokwa MP, K.T. Hammond was not enthused by the South Dayi legislator’s stance.
He believes the development is stifling Parliament’s effort to conduct the day’s business.
Mr. Hammond fumed and asked the NDC MPs to do as they please with the House and inform his side when they are ready to progress with the parliamentary business.
“You won’t let us do any work because we don’t have 90 plus or whatever, take this Parliament, do whatever you want to do with this Parliament. When you are tired, let us know,” he said.
This was the second time in a week that the Minority is citing the Supreme Court judgment to arrest approval of loan agreements.
Second Deputy Speaker, Andrews Akwasi Asiamah, was compelled to adjourn proceedings to Friday, March 18.