Akufo Addo Debunked! In Sham Showing And Blatant Lies In Interview With BBC’s Peter Okwoche On Collapsed Economy

President Akufo Addo has become a subject of widespread ridicule following his disastrous showing at the BBC in a widely publicized interview with Peter Okwoche, the notorious Focus on Africa’s programme.

President Akufo Addo made several claims that were completely false and borderline insensitive to the plights of the people, including his justification of the obnoxious Electronic Levy (e-Levy), a double tax on income that countless surveys had shown that over 90% of Ghanaians reject.

Even Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia had earlier described as unjustified taxing electronic transactions like Mobile Money (MoMo) transfers because the main users were the poor and that it would amount to double taxing incomes of the masses.

He claimed that electronic transactions constitute the biggest economy in Ghana and that “…for a long period, had not had any taxation at all”.

However, this is absolutely false because there is an existing tax on electronic transactions called Communications Service Tax (CST), the government has imposed a 6% tax on all communication services, including electronic money transfers in the past few years and this has already been passed on to consumers by telecom companies.

Indeed, about three years ago, the Akufo Addo administration attempted to increase the CST to 9%, but the massive resistance from both telecom companies and the general public forced the government to reverse the decision.

His other claim was that Ghana is undertaxed and that the country had the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio among its peers.

“…Ghana has the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio of any country with an equivalent economy. Ghana is doing 13% tax to GDP while the West African sub-region does an average of 18%. Ghanaians are undertaxed.”

However, the facts prove otherwise, checks by Whatsup News from IMF/World Bank sources show that on the contrary, Ghana has one of the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the sub-region among similar economies.

For instance, Cote d’Ivoire has a Tax Revenue to GDP of 12.3%, Cameroon 12.3% and Benin with 11.2%. Most of these countries have similar economies to that of Ghana and yet, their tax regimes are lower than that of Ghana.

Nigeria, perhaps the biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa currently has the lowest tax revenue to GDP in West Africa, at 6% in 2021. The figure shows that Ghana has double the taxes Nigeria collects from its citizens, with Ghana ending 2021 with 12.6% of Tax Revenue to GDP.

When Peter Okwoche grilled the Ghanaian President about the obvious economic collapse that his government had supervised, he insisted that Ghana was an excellent destination for investors. However, the reality is contrary to this claim.

In the past few months, almost all the international rating agencies such as Fitch, Moody’s and Standards and Poor’s had downgraded Ghana’s credit-worthiness to one of the most discredited in the history of the country.

During a recent diner with bankers during the 2021 Annual Bankers Week at the Chartered Institute of Bankers, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison, admitted the country’s finances are in a mess and that as a result, investors are sceptical about what President Akufo Addo is claiming is a  reversing the financial crisis of the country.

“The recent widening of the Ghana’s sovereign bond spreads after a successful bond issue in April 2021 surprised all of us, although we were aware of investor sentiments and their assessment of Ghana’s fiscal risks as they see the fiscal deficit outturn for 2020 as unsustainable and expecting very bold and decisive measures from the government to re-anchor fiscal consolidation and stabilize debt,” Dr. Addison stated.

The central bank boss warned that Ghana’s high deficit is unsustainable and that it is worse than its peers in West Africa.

“Investors have assessed that, as compared to our peers, Ghana required a stronger fiscal rectitude to re-establish investor confidence, and did not see the mid-year budget as addressing their sentiments,” he warned.

“The market’s assessment of the 2022 budget also suggests lingering doubts about the ability of the revenue measures announced to translate into a large increase in domestic revenue.”

But while on the BBC, President Akufo Addo was singing a totally different song, saying: “I think you will find that the recovery programme that we have in Ghana is considered very credible. And it is what is going to allow us to come out of this period with a stronger economy.”

Meanwhile, the President was called out for being insensitive to the plight of the people when he said Ghanaians were not impoverished, despite the growing poverty indicators in the country.

While the masses wail in anguish over economic pressures, President Akufo Addo continues to live like “an Arabian king”, maintaining one of the biggest government in the world with the biggest budget to the Jubilee House at amounts bigger than Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, which all have economies far bigger than that of Ghana.

The President’s wasteful lifestyle is also evident in his use of one of the world’s most expensive private jets to do his foreign travels, after he had abandoned the fully functional Presidential Jet that Ghanaians taxpayers had funded.

A few days ago, the North Tongu MP, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, revealed how the President resumed using the Private jet after he had passed the controversial e-levy tax law.

In a ploy, the President had not used the expensive private jet while the crux of the e-levy debate was ongoing, but immediately resumed his extravagant lifestyle as soon as the unpopular tax regime was passed.