A Member of Parliament who has avoided using Mobile Money after introduction of the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy) got stranded at a filling station after he ran out of cash.
The MP got a bill of GH¢3,000 after filling the tank of his vehicle only to realize he had GH¢2,100 on him at the time.
He was left with no choice but to call a colleague to ‘Momo’ GH¢900 to enable him settle his debt with the fuel station.
Member of Parliament for Asuogyaman, Thomas Nyarko Ampem, who narrated his ordeal during presentation of the Business Statement on Friday, November 4, appealed to the leadership to cut the number of sitting days to two to spare members the cost of fuelling their cars.
He observed that since Parliament resumed sitting, plenary has only been spending two hours or less each day and wondered if the days could not be reduced to two and the working hours extended to six or eight hours instead.
He said, “The business for this particular meeting is the budget and I have observed that for the days that we’ve been here, sometimes we come and in less than two hours we adjourn for the next day.”
“I’m asking whether it will not be possible for the Business Committee to consolidate and pack the activity so that instead of four days we can come like two days in a week in order to be able to save on the amount of money we are using for fuel each day.”
“Looking at the kind of business that we have, is it not possible… because we can stay for six hours a day instead of coming for two hours and we go back. Drive here, and two hours we go back. Pack the day if even it is eight hours we’ll be willing to stay and do the business for like two days; that way we can save like GH¢500 every week,” he stated.
He stressed that this is in line with a proposal by ex-President John Mahama to organizations to allow those who can work from home to do so adding, “Because the fuel situation is killing us.”