With the Speaker of Parliament coming from an opposition party, the government has decided to fight Parliament using Finance, Member of Parliament for Asawase, Alhaji Mubarak Muntaka, has said.
His comments come following the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin’s concerns that Parliament has no money.
Mr Bagbin said on Thursday, May 26 that Parliament will be running on some arrears of last year. He described the situation as not easy.
He said on the floor of the House that “What many of you don’t know is that even at this time we don’t have any releases from the Ministry of Finance for us to run Parliament.
“So we will be running Parliament on some arrears of last year, it is not easy. Sometimes we see your request for me to approve for you to do some things I declined. It is not because I love declining your request, it is because we don’t have the wherewithal fund those operations.
He further said Parliament is an arm of government and should not be treated as part of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA).
“I think the Ministry of Finance should not treat Parliament like this a Ministry or MDA. I will emphasize this again, this is an arm of government, we are not part of the MMDAS. We have even been written to reduce our budget in some areas by 50 per cent. If they want Parliament to run aground, they should let us know.
“The Speaker is not ready and prepared to be blamed for the inability to get Parliament going on just because we are not getting the necessary funding.”
Speaking on this matter in an interview with TV3’s Evelyne Tengmaa on Friday, May 27, Mr Muntaka who is the Minority Chief Whip, said “Now that we have a Speaker that is not on the side of government, it is like the only tool [the government] has is finance.”