President John Mahama
The revenue shortfall for government is a serious financial setback. Unfortunately, we have a government which relished the fruits of propaganda to come to power.
They rubbished the fact that COVID-19 and the Russo-Ukrainian war impacted the economy of the country, as it did the global community as a whole.
Here we are in a similar situation with a slight variation because it is about decisions taken by global players which has affected the US dollar and, therefore, impacted financial and budgetary projections.
Be it as it may, decisions must be taken to ameliorate the situation. Such decisions when taken should be such that there is sufficient balance so economic activities do not suffer unduly.
When the then President Akufo-Addo was faced with the COVID-19 crisis, he decided that rather than risk losing the lives of Ghanaians, the best option would be to allow the economy to witness a downward slide. After all, as he said, there was no dearth of knowledge about turning the economy around, not so however resuscitating dead human lives.
We witnessed how the hard decisions such as locking down the whole country even as government made good its promise of providing utilities gratis. Remuneration of workers were not stopped or even varied as the lockdown persisted. That was the first time that Ghana was experiencing a lockdown.
As for the windfall it provided for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to spread propaganda as a result of the expected downward slide of the economy, they had plenty of it.
Today, how does the NDC manage the thirty percent or so revenue shortfall? It must of course be through taxes, after describing the Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy) as a lazy approach to addressing an economic problem.
With the propaganda about running an economy without taxes, according to NDC fresh in our memories, the government must be suffering a helluva of trouble convincing Ghanaians about the ‘dumsor’ levy.
The dumsor levy has been presented to Ghanaians after rushing it through Parliament.
There was no consultation, and the oil marketers were as it were ordered to comply with the government’s directives towards commencing forthwith the new tax regime.
If indeed the dumsor levy is intended to address a thirty percent revenue shortfall for government, there of course must be a cutoff point or a date when it all will end. We cannot indefinitely continue paying for the correction of a revenue shortfall without knowing when it will all end.
There is no reference to a sunset clause in the tax initiative, and that gives a leeway for all manner of underhand deals to go on.
The oil marketers were on point when they described the government’s action as an “institutional ambush”, and “Rambo style directive”.
That is the way of the NDC government and it spans the storming of residences of former government appointees to directives to oil marketers to adjust prices in the middle of a weekend and during a holiday. That is NDC government for you.
The oil marketers had their way after screaming at government with a strongly-worded language.
When the NDC returns to opposition after their tenure, they should learn to be measured in the manner they apply propaganda. For now, we can only congratulate the oil marketers for their success in delaying the take-off date of the new petroleum tax or dumsor tax.