Akufo-Addo, Bawumia Punishing Ghanaians For Their Bad Economic Management – NDC

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has stated that the governing New Patriotic Party is punishing Ghanaians due to their government’s bad economic management.

Speaking at their Headquarters in Accra today, January 5, 2022, the National Communications Officer for the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi emphasised that the party is “utterly appalled by the decision of the insensitive Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government to reverse benchmark value discounts on selected imported goods, effective yesterday, January 4, 2022.”

The NDC spokesperson further feared that the government’s decision to reverse benchmark revenue discounts will cause traders to pass on costs to already suffering Ghanaians.

They also intimated the move will increase prices of goods and services and worsen “the severe hardships Ghanaians are already reeling under.”

“This will ultimately increase the cost of doing business in the country, negatively affect the turnover of businesses and the volume of trade in the country, and lead to the collapse of many businesses and jobs.”

Below more details of the statement read at the press conference:

1. It will be recalled that sometime in April 2019, government through Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia announced a 30% and 50% discount on the benchmark values of imported vehicles and general goods respectively. Sadly but unsurprisingly, government has decided to scrap these discounts on 44 categories of imported goods.
2. This terrible decision comes at a time when the national currency is depreciating and world commodity prices are increasing at an alarming rate, with freight charges and port handling charges being extremely high. More importantly, the callous decision by government to reverse benchmark value discounts comes at a time Ghanaian businesses, startups, parents and households are reeling under a yoke of excessive taxation, persistent increases in fuel prices and high cost of living never before witnessed in the anals of our country.
3. Ladies and gentlemen, what the decision to reverse benchmark value discounts effectively means is that, prices of the affected items such as; vehicles and spare parts, machinery, equipment and plants, aluminum finished products (roofing sheets), portland cement, cement paper bags, and clinker, poultry, animal products (meat), fish, rice, sugar, pasta, spaghetti, noodles and macaroni, pharmaceuticals (including drugs such as paracetamol, condoms etc.), toilet paper, facial tissue and towel, chocolate, toffees and chewing gum, palm oil (crude and refined oils), mosquito coils, ceramic tiles, tile cement, machetes, plastics, textile and textile articles, fruit juices, tomato paste and ketchup, furniture and parts, boxes of paper and paperboard cases of corrugated paper, iron steel bars, toilet soap and laundry bar soap, detergents washing powder, lubricating oil, soft drinks and carbonated drinks, biscuits/wafers, among others; will all go up by 30%- 50% in the coming days.
4. These increases which will eventually be passed on to Ghanaians will further escalate prices of general goods and services in the country and exacerbate the severe hardships Ghanaians are already reeling under. This will ultimately increase the cost of doing business in the country, negatively affect turnover of businesses and the volume of trade in the country, and lead to the collapse of many businesses and jobs.
5. In fact, the bitter reality is that, given the many draconian taxes that have been introduced by the callous Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government since April 2019 and the continuous depreciation of the Ghana Cedi which is already eroding profit margins and the capital of businesses, importers and Ghanaians in general will be worse off as a result of this decision. In short, import duties will be far higher than they were before April 2019 when the benchmark value discounts were introduced, in view of the continuous free fall of the Cedi and the raft of new crippling tax measures that government has introduced since April 2019.
6. Ladies and gentlemen, we wish to make the point, that this catastrophic decision has been occasioned by the self-inflicted economic malaise we presently find ourselves in, with our economy in tatters and government simply unable to find money to do anything. After five (5) years of economic mismanagement and reckless election-driven spending, which have taken the country back to its HIPC days, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government has decided to punish the already-burdened Ghanaian people with more hardships for their own recklessness and mismanagement. This is why all manner of crippling taxes and killer revenue measures such as the reversal of benchmark value discounts are now being imposed on Ghanaians to shore up government’s revenue just to create an artificial picture of a sound economy in order to convince the investor community on more and more borrowing.
7. We in the NDC are left in no doubt whatsoever that this latest decision by Government to reverse discounts on benchmark values of imported goods, further accentuates Dr. Bawumia’s place as the most deceitful Politician in Ghana’s history. It will be recalled that sometime in the year 2019, Dr. Bawumia was all over the place pontificating that Ghana’s Ports were one of the most expensive in the sub-region and that government had decided to introduce discounted benchmark values in order to facilitate more trade volumes, make our ports more competitive, reduce smuggling and increase government revenues from the Ports.
8. 8. Friends, the question that ought to be asked is, what has changed in just two years to warrant a reversal of that so-called “brilliant economic policy” which was introduced by the once economic messiah of the NPP who has now turned himself into an IT champion? What happened to all the justifications Dr. Bawumia mounted for the introduction of the discounted benchmark values? Is government no longer interested in facilitating more trade volumes and making our Ports competitive? Is government no longer interested in reducing smuggling and increasing national revenue through benchmark value discounts?
   9. Furthermore, the reversal of benchmark value discounts on selected imported goods reinforces our long-held view that this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government is an insensitive and callous administration which does not have the wellbeing of the Ghanaian people at heart. These are the very people who promised among other things to move this country from taxation to production, but have yet again pulled another deception on Ghanaians relative to import duty and Port charges. Never has a government been this cunning and untruthful to the people in our history as a country.
   10. As always, it would come as no surprise to us for government’s apologists led by Dr. Bawumia himself to once again canvass the COVID-19 pandemic as a convenient excuse for the decision to reverse benchmark value discounts. These days, the inept and clueless Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government blames literally every single thing on Covid-19, including when the sun fails to appear.

   However, it is important to state forcefully that COVID-19 can never be blamed for the reversal of benchmark values. Government exceeded its revenue target for the year 2020 (COVID year) and actually raked in more revenue than they did before COVID struck. For instance, in the year 2019 before the advent of COVID-19, total tax revenue stood at just about GHS43 billion, while total tax revenue for 2020 (covid-year) stood at GHS45.3 billion, thereby exceeding government’s tax revenue target for 2020 by a whopping GHS2.5 billion.

We Will Love You To Join Our Over 180k Members Instagram Family With Just One Click @gharticles

Source: GhArticles.com/NDC Communication Bureau