The Minority in Parliament has staged a\u00a0walk out\u00a0from Parliament while deliberations were ongoing on the controversial 17.5% Special Petroleum Tax.<\/p>\n
The Finance Minister, Seth Terkper submitted the bill to Parliament on Wednesday after presenting the 2015 budget statement and requested for Parliamentary approval.<\/p>\n
But the Minority indicated it will contribute to a bill which will impose hardships on Ghanaians.<\/p>\n
Currently, only the Majority Members of Parliament are considering the bill<\/p>\n
A former Deputy Energy Minister, K.T Hammond in an\u00a0earlier interview on Eyewitness News<\/strong>\u00a0said the Minority will “subject this bill to the most strenuous scrutiny tonight and if it means walking out, we will walk out because the NDC thinks they are so clever.\u201d<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”1mSvO2wjX3AOCpkEsDbGjqFmcMud9e1J”]\u201cWhat the bill is saying is that government is saying that it is broke so the good people of Ghana will have to come up with some more money to meet the financial shortfalls.”<\/p>\n “Revenues are tight as far as they are concerned so the rest of us should contribute to the way they have run the economy down which will have them resuscitate the economy by paying some more so essentially they are going to slap 17.5% tax on petroleum products,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n “There is some funny things that they [NDC] are doing and we will have to sit down and go through the figures and see…This bill is supposed to come before us under a certificate of urgency but as it is now, we are attacking the very basis of it. The budget has been read and we are being asked as Parliamentarians to sit up to whatever time to approve this special tax? We think this is not right in taking the Parliament of Ghana for a ride,” he fumed.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh\/citifmonline\/Ghana<\/p>\n