The advertised announcement in Parliament about the State of the Nation address by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been withdrawn.
Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin told Parliament on Friday, February 25 that the President will no longer be in the House on Thursday, March 3 to deliver the SONA as earlier adverstised.
“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.
This will take the Article 67 requirement beyond the second week in March as Parliament will only reconvene after the 65th independence celebration on Sunday, March 6, with Monday declared a statutory public holiday.
The SONA for 2022 will be the first after the violent exchanges in the House on Monday, December 20, 2021.
It will come when the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy is still in the House and yet to see daylight.
Already, President Akufo-Addo has described the furore around the levy, popularly known as 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 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.”
