Tema, Nov. 19, GNA – Mr Abraham Koomson, Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), has called on the minority side in Parliament to properly scrutinize the 2022 economic policy and budget before approval.
Mr Koomson stressed that there was the need for Members of Parliament especially the minority as the representatives of the citizenry to critically subject every part of the budget to the needed scrutiny before passing the appropriation law for its provisions to take effect from January 2022.
“I expect parliament to ensure that they check diligently and scrutinize the budget before approving it instead of grossing over,” Mr Koomson stated at the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office’s Industrial News Hub Boardroom Dialogue platform when he participated to analyse the budget and address other labour related issues.
Touching on the proposal to abolish toll taking on all public roads and bridges and the directive from the Minister of Roads and Highways for immediate seizure of road toll following the budget reading, he described the move by the Minister as “premature and illegal”.
He explained that, “if road toll passed through Parliament before its implementation, why is the Minister in a hurry to abolish it when the budget will start from January.”
He further said the toll booth operators, as well as hawkers who earn their daily income around tollbooths should have been given enough time to find alternative livelihood instead of directing its stoppage within some few hours after the presentation of the 2022 budget.
Mr Koomson noted that drivers were not asking for the abolishment of tolls, but rather a reduction in the cost of fuel, “how many drivers pay toll, they only pay when they go on long journeys, but with fuel wherever you drive, you will use it, so a reduction in fuel would have been profitable for drivers.”
He deflated suggestions that the activities of hawkers at the tollbooth areas was illegal, stressing that “their activities could not be equated to an illegality” but rather noted that it was the duty of the political head of a country to provide job opportunities for citizens, therefore the failure of successive government to do so pushed such persons into selling on the streets.
GNA