Inefficiencies in the Ghana government’s spending requires serious attention, the Majority Leader of Parliament, Hon. Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, has stated.
Hon. Kyei Mensah Bonsu said higher budgetary allocations alone may not translate into good social and economic outcomes unless specific measures are implemented to correct the underlining inefficiency in the government’s expenditure. He said these at a post-2022 budget statement workshop held in Ho, the capital of the Volta Region, on November 20.
He therefore asked the committees of Parliament to trace and track the allocations that are made to the various sectors of the economy in order to assure Ghanaians that there is value for money in the expenditures that are made on their behalf.
Hon. Kyei Mensah Bonsu, who is also the Leader of Government Business, however regretted that it is worrying that below 10 per cent of the total working population in Ghana are registered tax payers. He wondered how the government is going to be able to generate enough revenue to embark on development projects when few people pay tax.
He said the government has not been able to raise enough domestic revenue to develop the country. “Our inability to raise enough domestics revenue to meet government expenditure with less than 10 per cent of the total working class registered as tax payers, how can the government implement policies and programmes to improve the living conditions of Ghanaians. This is quite worrying and requires urgent steps to correct same,” the Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame said.
He added “Another area that requires attention is efficiency in government spending. Higher budgetary allocation alone may not translate into social and economic outcomes unless specific measures are implemented to correct the underlining inefficiency in spending.
“Here, I believe the committees of Parliament are required, as I keep saying, to trace and track the allocations that are made to the various sectors of the economy in order to assure our country men and women that indeed, there is value for money in the expenditures that are made on behalf of the people of this country.”
At the Ho workshop, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, said that his side in Parliament will not support the controversial E-levy policy proposal in the 2022 budget statement. According to him, the proposed levy is a disincentive for the growth of a digital economy.
“Mr Speaker, understandably, we see that the Minister of Finance seeks to introduce some measures including the now popularly declared e-levy or digital levy as some have quite named it. Mr Speaker, our concern is whether the e-levy itself is not and will not be a disincentive to the growth of digital economy in our country. We are convinced that the e-levy may as well even be a disincentive to investment and a disincentive to private sector development in our country,” the Tamale South MP said.
“We in the Minority may not and will not support government with the introduction of that particular e-levy . We are unable to build national consensus on that particular matter,” he said.
The introduction of the levy attracted concerns among a section of Ghanaians. For example, the National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, said on TV3’s ‘The Key Points’ programme on November 20 that the government was punishing Ghanaians with the introduction of these taxes. “They are punishing Ghanaians for their on recklessness,” Sammy said.
Also speaking on the same programme, a Fiscal Policy Specialist at Oxfam, Dr Alex Ampaabeng, said the Minority MPs should be blamed if the levy is approved. Dr Ampaabeng explained that approval of the 2022 budget statement, which was presented to Parliament by Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta on November 17, requires the support of lawmakers from both sides of the House.
Therefore, if the tax on mobile money transaction is approved by Parliament, the NDC MPs should also be held liable, not only those on the government’s side. “That is the first point that I want to make,” he said.
He further stated that the tax is going to counter the government’s agenda of ensuring a cashless system because people will now resort to relying on cash transactions.
Source: 3news.com
