Minority ‘boycotts’ 2020 State of the Nation Address

The Minority in Parliament has boycotted the 2020 State of the Nation Address.

The members of the caucus, clad in black chanted parts of the national anthem as they walked out of the chamber on Thursday.

They took the action shortly after President Nana Akufo-Addo assumed his seat in Parliament.“And help us to resist oppressors’ rule with all our will, and might forevermore,” they chanted as they left the chamber.

Some of the members of the minority held posters that indicated their displeasure about the number of issues in the country including corruption and the controversial issues of the voters’ register.

Last week, the Member of Parliament for Bodi, Sampson Ahi indicated that the caucus will consider “boycotting the State of the Nation Address” if their share of the Common Fund is not released by Friday, February 14, 2020.

“Being an election year, they [government] think that when they release our monies to our district or constituencies, we will get resources to work and that is why they have taken that decision to deprive us of resources.”

“We are saying this because, close to two months ago, the government released District Assembly’s Common funds to the district assemblies but as we speak, we don’t know when they are going to release the MP’s share,” he complained.

The Ministry of Finance said it was in the process of paying the MPs and urged the parliamentarians to be patient.

“You can find out from the District Assembly that the [2019] third quarter of the common fund has been paid to them and they are working to the get the MPs their share of the fund… We are in the process. We have done that for the district assemblies and we are in the process of doing that for the MPs as well,” Deputy Minister of Finance, Abena Osei Asare said in a Citi News interview.