Import restrictions bill: K.T Hammond denounces NDC

Trade and Industry Minister, K. T Hammond has described the Minority’s action that blocked him from laying a paper on the floor of Parliament as a “horror of horrors”. The Minority in Parliament opposed the laying of the Export and Import Restrictions bill.

He said the Minority adopted an opportunistic political position against the Export and Import (Restrictions on Importation of Selected Strategic Products) Regulations 2023. The Adansi-Asokwa MP said he was empowered by the Constitution to lay the paper but the Minority’s “horror of horrors” stopped him.

“In keeping with their preferred political philosophy of triangulation, which is the opportunistic adoption of political positions for situational advantage, the opposition party took up arms. They wouldn’t permit me to lay my paper, even though Article 11 of our Constitution granted me absolute authority, but horror of horrors.”

K.T Hammond said the NDC flagbearer John Mahama intends to introduce the same restrictions if he wins the 2024 elections. He, however, quickly added that that was the wildest imagination of John Mahama because there was no way the NDC would ever win an election in the country.

“Just a little while after his party members in opposition had threatened to cause the heavens to fall if my legislative instrument was not withdrawn, the opposition party’s flagbearer and former president, John Dramani Mahama, made a public declaration, a pronouncement that in the very remotest possibility that his party ever won elections again in Ghana, he would introduce the same import restrictions in Parliament.”

K. T Hammond added that the baseless opposition of the NDC would forever keep them in opposition. The Trade and Industry Minister was speaking at the Made in Ghana Bazaar at the Accra International Conference Centre.

“What can I say for logic? Opportunism scruples in this opposition party which is bound to remain in opposition.”