The Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has lamented over the Minority’s inability to quash the proposed 2.5% increment in Value Added Tax (VAT).
Despite mounting stiff opposition to the proposal by the Finance Minister in the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy, the Minority lost by a single vote as the Majority successfully pushed through the reviewed rate with its majority numbers on its side.
In a post on social media, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says the Minority is pained.
“Objectively and sincerely, despite an unwavering determination of the NDC Parliamentary Caucus to achieve all we set out to accomplish in solidarity with suffering Ghanaians, we lost the crucial VAT vote by a narrow 136-135.
“This is the only item on our 8-Point Must-Win-Agenda which we failed to deliver, and for which we are deeply pained. We did our very best but as they say, it’s always difficult to win everything. Nevertheless, we live to fight another day,” Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said.
According to him, the Minority remains committed and will push to ‘construct the Ghana we want’ with a high dose of patriotism and unquestionable integrity.
Despite losing the vote on the 2.5% VAT increment, he added that the Minority in Parliament succeeded in “scrapping a colossal GHS27.5million allocation to the wasteful and amorphous Special Development Initiatives Secretariat & the needless Monitoring and Evaluation Secretariat all at the Office of the President among other things.”
Source: Modern Ghana
