The Minority in Parliament has called on Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta to resign or be fired.
The group believes that the Minister’s incompetence contributed to the economic crisis, which forced the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fund the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme with $3 billion.
The Minority caucus filed a vote of a censure motion against the Finance Minister, accusing him of economic mismanagement, financial recklessness, conflict of interest, and gross economic mismanagement.
The censure motion was defeated during voting on Thursday, December 8, 2022, due to a walkout by the Majority caucus.
This was due to the fact that only 136 legislators on the Minority side voted to remove Mr. Ofori-Atta, falling short of the two-thirds constitutional requirement for the motion to pass.
To pass the motion against Mr. Ofori-Atta, the proponents needed the votes of 183 legislators.
In response to the Finance Minister’s briefing on the DDEP in Parliament, some members of the Minority caucus, including MPs for Asunafo South, Eric Opoku, and North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, called for the Minister’s resignation.
“Mr. Speaker, the Finance Minister ought to have resigned a long time ago, our colleagues on the other hand [Majority caucus], share this view with us. They agree with us that the Minister is messing up the economy. We must rise up against the incompetence and recklessness of the Honourable Minister of Finance,” Eric Opoku reiterated.
“What did the Jamaicans do? Immediately they ran their country into the ditch, the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, and Governor of the central bank of Jamaica all resigned. This Finance Minister must go,” Ablakwa stressed.
