The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has expressed its optimism that Ghanaians will embrace the E-Levy and other taxes introduced in the 2022 budget when they get a full understanding of these policies.
The party however says government will avail itself for accountability from tax-payers on the usage of revenues generated from the E-Levy.
The Communications Director of the NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoah in a Citi News interview asked Ghanaians to support the passage of the levy and demand accountability for same.
“I will be the first to admit that governments after governments records on delivery of public services, public goods have not always been the best in terms of the expectations of the people, but sometimes it is also because of the short funding mechanism that is why you have so many government assets abandoned across the country.”
“So we agree that people are skeptical, but that is why people must now hold us accountable and participate in this money because it is not money that is going to be borrowed but it’s money that is coming from them (Ghanaians). So they should own the process and participate in it and demand accountability and ensure that the projects are delivered.”
General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu, says a future National Democratic Congress government will not scrap the E-levy despite the party’s opposition to the policy.
According to him, the NDC will rather increase it when they come to power.
“When we were bringing the ‘Talk Tax’, they kicked against it. They demonstrated against it, but at the end of the day when they came to power, they didn’t remove it. They rather increased it because it was an innovative way of raising revenue.”
“So I believe that they believe this is an innovative way of raising revenue, and I can assure Ghanaians that they will never withdraw this tax when they come to power. So Ghanaians should ignore them.”
Meanwhile, Parliament will later today, Friday, November 26, 2021, conclude the debate on the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy presented by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
Members of Parliament have made contributions to various sub-sectors of the economy since Tuesday, November 23, 2021.
