North Tongu MP, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has responded to Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu’s statement that the Minority’s injunction on the implementation of the e-levy is dead on arrival.
Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Midday on Friday, Mr. Ablakwa said, “the Majority Leader does not speak on behalf of the Judiciary, so I treat his comment with contempt.”
According to him, the Suame MP’s comment does not have any effect on the injunction.
This he explained is because, “He [Majority Leader] is not the Chief Justice and he is not the panel going to hear our case on the 4th of May, so that press conference is really an exercise in futility, which is just blowing hot air.”
In the injunction, Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Idrissu, and two NDC MPs urged the Supreme Court to restrain the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) from its planned implementation of the Electronic Transactions Levy on May 1.
The Minority Leader, together with two of his colleagues, argued that Parliament did not have the required number of at least, half of its members present when the controversial tax policy was approved, hence want an interim injunction on the implementation of the e-levy.
In response, Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu described as “dead on arrival” the Minority’s application to the Supreme Court.
Speaking at a press conference by the Majority Caucus on Friday, the Suame MP said once the President assents to the Bill and its operation is not postponed by Parliament, the Bill comes into operation, hence the Minority’s application to the Supreme Court will be an exercise in futility.
He noted that the act by the Minority not to exhaust the processes and procedures in Parliament and rather seek redress in court would come back to haunt them in the future
However, according to the North Tongu MP, the Minority Group is “taking note of all these statements and we will return to the Supreme Court shortly and draw the apex court’s attention to these contemptuous statements.”
He added that the e-levy implementation, ”is a war that we [Minority] are determined to wage in the interest to the Ghanaian people and most importantly to uphold the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.”
Meanwhile, the Ghana Revenue Authority has described the test run of systems to monitor and charge the electronic transaction levy as a success, and dismissed calls from the telecommunications chamber to postpone the implementation date of May 1.
