It is rare for Members of Parliament to gang up against their own colleagues let alone one in leadership, but the Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Kwaku Kwarteng has come under a barrage of criticism from his colleagues. 

He is accused of sitting on hundreds of tax waiver requests and has refused to bring them to the floor for approval.

The Chairman of the Trades and Industry Committee, Carlos Ahenkorah says Mr Kwarteng’s conduct is unacceptable, adding that it is killing industry in the country.

“If we go on recess and there are exemptions in this House to be granted, you put investors in a situation that they have to wait for us to come back from recess before they can go and process the document. That is if the exemption is given. We are sitting in this room and we have had exemption requests since 2021, and it is giving us headache. Are you telling me that any serious investor coming to this country who has borrowed money from the bank should sit down for two years before they get the exemption to clear the goods from the port? What are you doing to the industry? You are killing the industry,” he said.

It is not only Carlos Ahenkorah who's going after the Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Minister for Trade and Industry, K.T Hammond has also in an unprecedented fashion filed an urgent question seeking to haul Mr Kwarteng before the House to answer questions on the tax waivers and why his committee is not approving them.

Interestingly, it is the Minority Leadership who are rising to the Defence of Kwaku Kwarteng.

Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson says the attempt to blame the Chairman of the Finance Committee is untenable.

He explained why there seems to be a delay in the approval of tax waivers to companies.

“Mr Speaker, it is not right, and it's wrong for you to think that the Finance Committee of which I am a member has failed to sit on the referrals. We sat on it, brought it to this House and it was rejected and referred back to the Finance Committee to look at it back again .. so nobody should blame the Chairman of the Finance Committee for not doing his job. The trouble is that this House rejected it,” he said.

Also, Minority Chief Whip, Governs Kwame Agbodza says Parliament must not be rushed to just be approving tax waivers when since many of the waivers approved in the past have not been used by the beneficiary companies.

According to him, the Chairman of the Finance Committee is doing the right thing by scrutinising the waivers to prevent such situations.

“Encouraging us to be giving tax waivers just because the people are demanding it is not correct. Find out yourself; we have granted tax waivers of millions of dollars for the construction of Poolman Hotel, go to the site now and find out if construction is going on there, go to La General Hospital, Shama District Hospital, is any project going on there?” he asked.