Ghanaians should brace themselves for more hardships - Minority

e annan

July 16, 2018 1:55 PM

This was said by the NDC's Ranking Member of Parliament's Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson during the Minority's mid-year budget review this morning.

They said their economic projections indicate that things are about to get worse under the Akufo-Addo administration.

“In a usual populist rhetoric, they characterised taxes introduced by the past government as nuisance taxes, in that it has very low revenue yield and stifled private sector growth,” he said, adding that: “Institutional and structural rigidity of the economy will suggest to any economist that the relationship between tax cuts, economic growth and revenue are more likely to be inelastic”, he said.

Ato Forson also said: "It is unthinkable and naive for any economist to assume that cutting or worse still eliminating taxes, concurrent with expansion in expenditure, in a small open economy like Ghana’s, with a developing private sector, would immediately translate into economic growth, and increased tax revenue".

The Member of Parliament for Ejumako-Enyan-Essiam also said, "the public debt is now GHS154 billion excluding the energy bond of GHS4.4 billion.

For him, “The increase in tax revenue will not be enough to offset the loss in revenue as a result of tax cuts”, a situation, he said the economy is currently experiencing".

e annan