Akufo-Addo Gov’t Blew over GHC 33 Billion in One Year But Wants GHC 6 billion From Killer E-Levy

Former President John Mahama has reiterated his question about what the Akufo-Addo government with widely rejected Electronic Transfer Tax (E-Levy) which will potentially yield the government only Ghc6billion annually when the same government squandered over Ghc33billion in one year.

In a release from his office, dated 7Th February 2022, Mr. Mahama pointed out that the windfall that the government wasted between 2020 and 2021, is more than five times what it is seeking to collect through the e-levy.

“The Akufo-Addo administration in 2020/21 received and misapplied the largest windfall or bailout in Ghana’s history: a $1 billion concessional facility from the IMF, another $1 billion in SDR allocation, $430 million from the World Bank, $250 million from the Stabilization Fund, Gh¢10 billion from the Central Bank. This amounted to a total of about Gh¢33 billion.”

The statement continued: “It is a pity that today, the NPP’s entire economic plan hinges on the passage of an E-levy expected to raise a little over Gh¢6 billion. How did we arrive here?”

Experts are worried that Ghana’s lower-middle-income status which was achieved by the Mills/Mahama government is in real danger of eroding under Akufo-Addo who has superintended over the worst economic management in the 4th Republic.

After two rating agencies downgraded Ghana’s creditworthiness, the President over the weekend called for a pan-African battle against the rating agencies, something that many think is an erratic behaviour from Akufo Addo whose government was recently full of praises for the rating agencies.

“As I have indicated previously, the government must as a matter of urgency, borrow a leaf from our sound approach toward the challenges we faced in 2015. We immediately convened the Senchi Economic Forum at which we tapped the brains and expertise of a wide variety of knowledgeable people and stakeholders and built a consensus on our economic plan going forward,” Mahama said.

He added, “But for the profligacy and also the reckless election-related expenditure in 2020, which undermined all the progress that had been made, our economy would not have taken the catastrophic nose-dive it has taken and left us all reeling under hardship,” Mahama jabbed Akufo Addo.

Interestingly, while in opposition, Akufo-Addo and the NPP had boycotted the Senchi Economic Forum, being the only group of people in Ghana who had turned down the invitation to contribute ideas on how to build the country’s economy.

According to Mr. Mahama, the same kind of partisan attitude is preventing the government to swallow its pride and ask for help from other Ghanaians, including the NDC which has weathered even harder storms in the past.

“Like one drowning and yet clutching at mere straw to stay afloat, this government has banked all its hopes on the E-Levy, which, given the gravity and depth of the problems that have beset our economy, is neither adequate nor viable as a sustainable response to the crisis,” said Mahama.

“It is painfully obvious that beyond the ill-conceived E- Levy, the Akufo-Addo administration has no viable or credible plan of action to get us out of the current economic doldrums into which they have plunged us; meanwhile, there can be collective buy-ins from the Ghanaian people, development partners and the investor community that are being ignored.”