• admin
• December 1, 2021
• 4
• 53
• Budget Parliament Press Release

Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the press. Thank you very much for honoring our invitation at such short notice.

Yesterday, we witnessed the criminal imposition of the wicked 2022 budget on Ghanaians. You would remember that on Friday 26^th November 2021, we mobilised Ghanaian youth to march to the Parliament to register opposition to the wicked 2022 budget. Prior to that we had addressed you on our key reasons for rejecting the budget. For the avoidance of doubt, let me repeat them here.

1. The imposition of new taxes and increases in fees and charges are going to compound the untold hardships that the people are already suffering
2. The budget has no cushioning for the people who are already reeling under the hardship of COVID with its accompanying job losses and pay cuts.
3. There are numerous alternative sources of revenue that we have consistently proposed that the establishment does not take advantage of. Among these are:

1. Cutting down on frivolous expenditure such as cars for ministers, car loans for MPs, renting of expensive jets etc.
2. Abolishment of ex-gratia saving hundreds of millions of dollars
3. Curtailing corruption, which is capable of saving us more than GHC 10 billion a year
4. Abolishment of tax concessions to rich foreign companies, which can yield up to GHC 20 billion a year
5. Ownership and control of our natural resources
6. Moving from taxation to production

However, despite all these available alternative sources, the government has resorted overburdening the already suffering masses with wicked taxes the most obnoxious of which perhaps is the so-called E-levy. That is the tax that has been proposed to literally steal the meagre mobile money that poor people transfer when they buy a bowl of rice or a bag of maize for sustenance or retail. For transferring GHC 150 to her supplier, a micro-trader will have to pay 1% charge to MTN amounting to 1 cedi 50 pesewas. She will have to now pay an additional 1.75% amounting to 2 cedi 62 pesewas. In total she will lose 4 cedis 12 pesewas just for transferring GHC 150. This is a most barbaric and insensitive form of tax coming on the back of wanton increases in fuel prices which have led to abnormally high prices of transportation, food items and other basics. The system has become too hot. People can no longer cope. But clearly, the NPP government does not care. It does not care about the poor farmer. It does not care about the petty trader. It does not care about the national service person; does not care about the taxi and trotro driver. It does not care about us Ghanaians. All the government cares about is how to line up the pockets of the people in the establishment while piling hardships on the masses. They purportedly passed the budget ignoring the cries of the people. This is by far the most insensitive things any government can do.

Equally baffling is the attitude of the paid opposition who positioned themselves as if they were against the wicked 2022 budget only to stay away from a crucial vote. We are advised that had the minority stayed in the house, with the first deputy speaker losing his original vote as the person presiding, the vote could have returned equal numbers and therefore lost by the rules of the sakawa parliament. The NPP walked out for the minority to have their day last Friday in order to save face. While the NDC walked out on Tuesday for the NPP to have its way. It all appears as a grand scratch-my-back and I scratch-your-back scheme to hoodwink the people into thinking that they are on opposite sides when in actual fact they are all united in protecting their class interests. After all, the wicked budget does include huge salaries and allowances for so-called article 71 officeholders of which they are all part. It includes provisions for free healthcare for them. No wonder the judiciary was also represented in the scam of Tuesday to give it judicial blessing and serve notice that any case at the supreme court on this budget will “fall flat”. They also need their allowances, huge salaries, bonuses, big cars, free fuel, free medical care abroad etc. It is all about their class interest.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us the rest of Ghanaians to take our class interest seriously. We will keep resisting the oppressive rule of the high class. But we need to change the tactics of resistance. In the 2020 elections, after analysing all the options on the table, we had come to the conclusion that none of them offered any hope for the Ghanaian. We therefore launched and embarked on a #NoVote2020 campaign, a campaign of boycott of the elections to prevent the system from using the votes of Ghanaians to legitimize their stealing. It was then a potent tool to completely discredit the system and bring it to a halt. Sadly, despite what modest gains we achieved with the campaign, most Ghanaians showed up and voted. Thus adding their thumbs to the hands of oppression – their own oppression.

Our movement operates in the knowledge that the rot in the Ghanaian system is found at the root. The 1992 Constitution remains a facilitator of corruption, marginalisation and lack of accountability, and so Fighters continues to push for a new, People-centred constitution, shaped by the Ghanaian People to serve the collective Ghanaian need.

Even as we wage this battle to restore the foundations on which Ghana is built, the Economic Fighters League has decided that we must also actively engage in the next election in order to enable the People to throw out the oppressors and break the NPP-NDC stranglehold over Ghana.

The best way to expose a glass of dirty water is to place a glass of clean water by it and so the Economic Fighters League will offer a platform for those Ghanaians who are of integrity and substance to contest the elections in 2024. We aim to fight the battle to rescue the country on two fronts – from the inside and from outside, presenting principled, honest, competent, progressive men and women with high integrity to replace the bunch of corrupt, incompetent, self-seeking individuals we currently have in Parliament and have had since 1992. We will work to build a coalition of willing individuals and organisations who have this country at heart and who yearn for it to be fixed. Anybody who fits this criteria and wants better for Ghana should contact us via our official channels which will be shared in a written statement on our website and social media. Any such individuals must be prepared to be vetted based on set criteria, and to undergo thorough ideological training.

Our battle is to save this nation from the claws of these greedy bastards and restore the hope and dignity of our people, making sure they have decent lives and a proud country for themselves and their children. We shall not rest until this is achieved. Until we are all free.

Thank you.