The announced statement in Parliament concerning President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s State of the Nation (SONA) address has been withdrawn.
On Friday, February 25, Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin informed Parliament that the President would no longer be in the House on Thursday, March 3 to address the SONA, as previously announced.
“This indicative date has, however, been put on ice by us and we would duly communicate a new date to the House after we have engaged the presidency,” the Effutu lawmaker stated.
The Article 67 requirement will be extended into the second week of March since Parliament will not return until after the 65th anniversary of independence on Sunday, March 6, with Monday marked a statutory public holiday.
The SONA for 2022 will be the first after the House’s violent exchanges on Monday, December 20, 2021.
It will happen while the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy is still in the House and has yet to see the light of day.
President Akufo-Addo has already branded the uproar over the charge, colloquially known as the e-levy, as “unnecessary disputation.”
“I am determined to persevere to make sure we find the means to address some of these issues,” he had told some traditional leaders who called on him at the Jubilee House on Monday, February 1.
“These are the efforts that we are now making which have been resisted by the opposition as we try and close the gap. It is necessary for us to do so because that is the only way in which some of these matters can be addressed.
“We ourselves have to find the money for our development and that is the reason why it has become necessary for us to use these measures like this famous tax which has caused so much unnecessary, in my view, disputation; nevertheless, we would continue.”
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SOURCE: 3NEWS
