Parliament adjourns to January 2 - Expenditure in Advance of Appropriation hangs

The Seventh Meeting of the Fourth Session of the Eighth Parliament has been adjourned to January 2, 2025, with the House stopping short of approving the GH¢68.13 million Expenditure in Advance of Appropriation to cater for public sector workers’ salaries for January to March next year. 

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, adjourned the House based on an agreement the leadership of the House reached together.

“Following from yesterday’s proceedings and pre-sitting conclave meetings I held with the leadership of the House and in the spirit of that agreement and the national interest, I proceed to adjourn the sittings of this meeting to January 2, 2025,” he said.

The sitting started exactly at 2 p.m. but had to be adjourned after almost 20 minutes of proceedings that did not consider any of the advertised government business.

They included the Free Secondary Education Bill, 2024, and the Expenditure in Advance of Appropriation, the $250 million World Bank facility for the Ghana Financial Stability Project and the President’s nomination of two justices for the Supreme Court, whose vetting Parliament had completed.

Besides, the Minister of Finance, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, who was due to appear before the House to lay the Evidence in Advance of Appropriation paper for consideration, did not show up.

Soon after the adjournment, the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, held a press conference in which he told the media that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government had failed to comply with Article 180 of the Constitution to present the Expenditure in Advance of Appropriation.

President failed us

He said in the spirit of a good transition, it was expected that the outgoing President, acting pursuant to Article 180, would have acted in good faith and bring before Parliament a proposal for expenditure to cater for the first quarter of the year 2025.

“This was very important because the Appropriation Act for 2025 will not come into force on January 1, 2025.

Dr Forson, however, assured Ghanaians that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government that would take office on January 7, 2025, would act with dispatch to cater for expenditure for the first quarter of 2025.

Telling Ghanaians that there was no cause for alarm, Dr Forson said even though there would be no Finance Minister on January 7, 2025, the Vice-President could present to the House the Expenditure in Advance Appropriation any time after the swearing-in on January 7.

Obstructing govt business

At a separate press conference, the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, assured Ghanaians that as democrats, the Majority Caucus were ever ready to proceed to consider the Expenditure on Account, saying that “there is no way we will ambush our fortunes as a nation”.

He, however, said since Parliament resumed, the NDC Minority had done all it could to frustrate government business.

“The strategy of the NDC had been that despite all those procedures, they would not allow any paper to even be laid,” he said.

Mr Afenyo-Markin expressed worry over the entrenched posture of the Minority to obstruct the consideration of the two Supreme Court nominees, the Free SHS Bill, the Environmental Protection Bill, as well as the $250 million facility from the World Bank to support the financial sector.