The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has directed the Minister of Roads and Highways to immediately withdraw the directive he issued Wednesday for the cessation of the collection of roads and bridges tolls in Ghana.
He stated that Mr Kwasi Amoako-Atta, the minister, as a member of the Executive, had no authority to issue such a directive.
Mr Bagbin explained that the Executive could not, on their own, suspend the implementation of any law without consulting with Parliament that enacted them, saying that, “this House cannot be taken for granted.”
“That is not democracy and that will be one-man rule; and so, I want to clearly direct that what the minister has released has no effect,” he stated.
Contempt of Parliament
Speaking on the floor of Parliament Thursday [Nov 18, 2021], Mr Bagbin said until Parliament approved the financial proposals and policies contained in the 2022 budget, no minister could implement any policy contained in the budget.
“So, I think that it is proper for us to direct the minister, a senior member of this House, to honourably withdraw that directive; failure to do so will be a serious breach of directive of the Speaker and that will amount to contempt of Parliament,” he said.
Usurping Parliament’s authority
The Speaker gave the directive after the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, had expressed reservation against the directive by the Roads and Highways Minister for the cessation of the collection of road and bridge tolls at all locations nationwide, effective from 12am on Thursday, November 18, 2021.
He cited paragraph 247 on page 60 of the budget statement where the Minister of Finance categorically proposed for charges on all road tolls to be removed on all public roads “effectively, immediately the budget is approved by Parliament.”
He, therefore, urged the House to take a serious view of the conduct and directive of the minister since what he did was “an attempt to usurp the power of this august House.”
Minister has no authority
The Speaker told the House the Minister of Finance, representing the President and presenting to the House the budget and financial proposals for 2022, sought the permission of the House to approve the budget and the financial proposal effective January 1, 2022 ending December 31, 2022.
He said the minister expressed his reliance on the House for the budget’s approval to implement the country’s budget.
“Until this budget is approved, all what is contained in the budget are proposals; we (House) have the authority to approve but they (Finance Ministry) have been given the authority, pursuant to Article 170 (9) to prepare and lay before the House.
Minister has no authority
The Speaker told the House the Minister of Finance, representing the President and presenting to the House the budget and financial proposals for 2022, sought the permission of the House to approve the budget and the financial proposal effective January 1, 2022 ending December 31, 2022.
He said the minister expressed his reliance on the House for the budget’s approval to implement the country’s budget.
“Until this budget is approved, all what is contained in the budget are proposals; we (House) have the authority to approve but they (Finance Ministry) have been given the authority, pursuant to Article 170 (9) to prepare and lay before the House.
Minister has no authority
The Speaker told the House the Minister of Finance, representing the President and presenting to the House the budget and financial proposals for 2022, sought the permission of the House to approve the budget and the financial proposal effective January 1, 2022 ending December 31, 2022.
He said the minister expressed his reliance on the House for the budget’s approval to implement the country’s budget.
“Until this budget is approved, all what is contained in the budget are proposals; we (House) have the authority to approve but they (Finance Ministry) have been given the authority, pursuant to Article 170 (9) to prepare and lay before the House.
Source: Graphic.com.gh
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
I say, if you are delibrately bent on being mischievous by propagating lies or trivialities for political gains, you tend to expose your ignorance on the blind side of things. You see, in law, we have what is called a "formular," which is derived from logic. In other words, you can equally discharge ahead of suspending. If you have a law which says "if Parliament has given you powers to introduce a charge and you want to suspend that charge, administratively you can do so without going to Parliament." That is what is termed "administrator discretion." And yet they are all great minds and lawyers. Their affiliation with the NDC has made them intellectually dishonest and counterproductive. The NDC should not in any way whatsoever underrate the intelligence of Ghanaians.
Scrapping the toll booth system for road toll collections is a better first step. My brother factor in the cost of turning 2 lanes into 3. how long do you think that will take looking at the slow pace of our developments. Taking away this toll booth system will ease unnecessary Jam on the stretch of roads and help improve productivity. Before we think of expansion, lets pay attention to the bad roads in the system first before we expand. We can still collect the tolls another way. We can do that at the renewal of licensing stage of every car in the system. With the reported of nearly 1million vehicles in the system an average charge of 500cedis per year will easily bring in 500 million which is far better than the 78million being collected now with its attendant problems. There are better ways we can do things and still improve. The toll booths must go
Mr. Speaker, I agree with you perfectly on this one. The budget statement read is for 2022 and not 2021 and so the Minister should have waited for Parliament to discuss it for acceptance before implementation. Why in a hurry to announce something that has not been approved by the body who have oversight responsibility. The cancellation of the road toll in itself is questionable, so why in a hurry to implement it? Ghanaians are not crying for paying road tolls, neither are we complaining of the traffic situation at these toll booths. What we know is that the vehicle population has increased on our roads and so there's a need to expand our roads from 2 lanes to 3 lanes and when approaching the toll booths, 4 booths can be created to ease the congestions there. Scrapping toll booths levy doesn't make sense.