Spare us your ranting – Speaker tells NDC MP

There is a usual convention in the Chamber where Parliamentarians are allowed to debate on Committee reports before they are adopted. During these times, members of both sides of the political divide speak passionately in relation to the content of the report.

However, there exists another practice where usually members on the Minority side, who belong to a particular committee, spew venom on the same committee’s report on the Plenary, as if they were not part of the process, a development which paints a picture that their views were not sought at the Committee level.

On the floor of Parliament yesterday, the First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu, was compelled to chastise the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ho Central, Benjamin Kpodo, to spare the House his “ranting.”

The MP, who is a member of the Finance Committee, was debating on his committee’s report on a request for a tax waiver for a local company, as part of the government’s One District, One Factory (1D1F) policy.

The waiver, amounting to US$222, 151, equivalent to GH¢1,144,723, was for equipment to be procured by Yedent Agro Bulk Processing Company Limited. The request was for the waiver of import duties, import Value Added Tax (VAT), Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) Levy, Import National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), EXIM Levy, and other imports.

In his submission, the MP expressed displeasure over the granting of an exemption to Yedent Agro-Processing Company Limited under the 1D1F, though the company had existed since 2011 before he even entered Parliament, he said.