Gov’t Missed An Opportunity To Abolish e-levy, other taxes– Minority

The Minority caucus in Ghana’s parliament has stated that the government missed a golden opportunity to abolish nuisance taxes such as e-levy, which has suffocated Ghanaians in recent times.

Minority leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson said this indicated that Ghanaians expected taxes such as the E-levy, Emission Levy, and COVID Levy to be removed during the presentation of the mid-year review.

Speaking on the floor of Parliament after the mid-year budget statement by Finance Minister, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam on Tuesday, July 23, the Ejumako Enyan Essian lawmaker accused the Akufo-Addo and Bawumia-led administration of lacking ideas to handle the economy.

According him, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration is heading into opposition because of their lack of ideas.

“Ghanaians expected that the government would have removed a number of taxes because businesses are packing out of the country.

“The taxes include covid levy, e-levy, ‘borla’ tax, tax on domestic electricity, emission levy. This is a missed opportunity. They are bereft of ideas, you are on your way to opposition,” he said.

During the mid-year budget presentation, the Finance Minister said that the provisional total debt stock of Ghana stood at GH¢742 billion, representing US$50.9 billion as of June 2024.

This represents 70.6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) he said during the 2024 mid-year budget review in parliament on Tuesday.

“The stock consists of external debt of GH¢452.0 billion and domestic debt of GH¢290.0 billion, representing 60.9 percent and 39.1 percent of the total debt stock, respectively. As a percentage of GDP, external and domestic debt represented 43.0 percent and 27.6 percent, respectively. This indicates an increase of 22 percent due to the effect of the cedi depreciation and continuous disbursements from creditors,” he explained.