Afenyo-Markin exposes alien forces controlling minority

External forces of hawkish trappings are behind the seeming lack of consensus between the Minority and Majority groups in Parliament as these hardliner forces outside Parliament often sway the Minority to rescind decisions they had earlier entered with the Majority, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, Deputy Majority Leader has said.

Afenyo-Markin expressed worry that the continuous extremist attitude of these alien forces from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) outside of Parliament has adversely affected the hitherto smooth cooperation and harmony which is a prerequisite for the progress of a hung Parliament.

“I am telling you that there are some hard liners, some hawks, some external forces on the side of the NDC who still believe that for this to go through, their chances of coming to power in 2024 would be slim.  Therefore they should hold this a squeeze as much as blood out

“Insisting partisan position has affected our work. Our friends did so well when we were doing the vetting, in fact they were very cooperative, they have been cooperative except that on E-Levy, the forces that are bigger than them have made it virtually impossible for us to proceed”, Afenyo-Markin noted on Citi TV’s Point Blank, hosted by Bernard Avle.

The Deputy Majority Leader said  on the issue of the E-Levy, the external hawks and forces are the ones causing the confusion because the Majority has done all it can to address the concerns raised by the Minority but when both sides reach a consensus, it is followed by a U-turn as though nothing had been discussed.

He said for instance, it was not out of fun that the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu announced publicly that his side can agree on one percent only for the same NDC side to come back and say they are no longer interested in the one percent but were now completely against the policy in its totality.

“I can say to you on good authority that we have been engaging and the engagement appears positive and I believe that if the way we are going we are able to proceed on that path, we would be able to go through with this

“All the concerns that came from their side, we did not just sit down; some senior Members from both sides have been engaging on this. We have had out of Parliament discussions, we have sat at roundtables, and we have had a weekend of discussions both sides. I can’t give the full details but both sides agree that we must make a head way on this matter”, Afenyo-Markin added.

He continued: “It is unfortunate that our friends are behaving as though they have never been in government; as though their ability to come to power is about how hard they negotiate and how they are able to frustrate this government.

“To them, the more you frustrate, the more you create that state of hopelessness but you see very soon, Ghanaians would read in between the lines and may let them know that unfortunately, they are also really destroying our very democracy.

“Their leader came to announce to the whole world that they were open to one percent.  At the time the one percent was announced by them, on the negotiation table, they were willing to take 1.25 percent. Then all of a sudden, when he made that announcement, the party machinery said no and they now said zero tolerance.

“Avedzi knows that he led his side when we set up a new team to negotiate and I led our side.  We had serious engagement but anytime that we made progress, you would have their external forces coming in and like I have said, the external forces within their ranks believe that this is an opportune time to squeeze government. If you allow this opportunity to pass, you may never get it again, or that if they get this E Levy through, there would be enough funding for the road sector and to deal with the unemployment situation.”