How coronavirus, funeral blocked NDC MPs from rejecting 2021 budget

John Jinapor, the Member of Parliament for Yapei/Kasawgu has explained to Ghanaians why the Minority could not get Parliament to reject the 2021 budget.

The Members of Parliament on the side of the minority had vowed to reject the budget until the government furnished the house with the deficit of the 2020 budget.

But in a head count held on Friday, March 19, 2021 on the floor of Parliament 137 MPs voted for the budget as against 134 who opposed it.

Speaking to Citi FM, Jinapor said that the NDC MPs could not prevent the passing of the budget because the numbers were not on their side.

He said that some of their members were battling covid-19 while one other was burying his mother on the same day hence could not come to Parliament.

"I do know that both sides, I contracted COVID, let me say that I contracted COVID and I have recovered, it doesn't mean that everybody has recovered, but I'm saying that out of the three that we couldn't account for or couldn't vote, one is not well, one lost the mum and burying the mother, the other was supposed to be joining us just like the Fomena MP but both of them lost out in terms of the timing, so the Fomena MP for the NPP side couldn't join us and then one of our colleagues was also struggling to come and join us but he had an issue on the way and couldn't also join us, so that is what happened”.

He noted also that due to the mode of voting, the NDC would have still lost if they had a full house as the NPP side would have whipped their members to vote for them.

“Assuming everybody was present, and we were all available both NPP and NDC, we still might not have carried the day because this is not the secret ballot and normally everybody ensures that they whip their members in line."