Dr Kwabena Duffuor, a former Minister of Finance, has berated the government following the passage of the controversial Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy) Bill.
He said the government’s decision to pass the unpopular levy despite wise counsel from economists such as himself meant the Akufo-Addo-led administration was not a listening government.
Lamenting after the E-Levy was passed, Dr Duffuor noted that the government had progressed in their passage of the bill and despite the hardships of the citizenry and disaffection for it, the government ignored concerns and added to their tax burden.
“Many Ghanaians have openly kicked against the E-Levy, which was passed by the Majority Caucus in Parliament despite a walkout by the Minority Caucus in Parliament despite concerns raised by citizens to abolish the passage of the levy but the government refused to listen to them and passed it to inflict more hardships on us.
“Just like many well-meaning and experienced economic specialists offered several suggestions on alternatives to the E-Levy, the government has shown disaffection to Ghanaians by ignoring our concerns which is disheartening.
“Currently in the country, foreign interests are largely the main beneficiaries of our extractive sector at the expense of Ghanaians who benefit from low revenue from our natural resources so we must start looking at the sector we have ignored over the years,” Dr Duffuor decried.
According to him, a well-managed natural resource centre had emerged as the safest route to prosperity in many developed countries such as the US, UK, and Germany and pointed out that the country must go back and renegotiate its mining agreements for higher revenues rather than stick to colonial agreements to the detriment of the people.
Source: The Ghanaian Times
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Another NDC failure trying to remain relevant. What was your track record? No innovation when he was in office. Shu.ttt the ***barred word*** up.....
Somebody who thinks about the hardship of the citizens does not use their deposit in your bank to open over fifteen different companies in your name, to the extent that the Bank of Ghana bailout money given to you to salvage the bank from collapse was use by your son to purchase properties in overseas. Silent is golden, there are skeletons in your cupboard so you better watch your tongue.
l thought he was on a higher level than Mahama in thinking, Dr my foot
I think when you say "lack of public support for the E-levy," you are certainly referring to the NDC-charged public opposition to the E-levy. The people of Ghana should be supportive of the E-levy because this is the first time a government has been bold and innovative enough to do something differently. Rather than the usual rush to the IMF for a bail out, So let's wait and see if we will achieve different and better results than the IMF's stringent conditionalities attached to such borrowing.