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Mid-year budget review: Ghanaians must prepare for more hardship – NDC

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has warned Ghanaians to brace themselves for more hardships following the presentation of the 2019 mid-year budget review.

Former deputy Finance Minister, Fifi Kwetey

Fifi Kwetey, a former deputy Finance Minister under the NDC government, believes the announcement of tax increases is an indication of more challenging times to come.

He said fuel prices are going to increase, which would in turn lead to an increment of transport fares.

According to him, many Ghanaians will also be strained in their finances due to the communication service tax.

“The hardship on them is going to increase. For example, a gallon of petrol is actually going to see almost 1 cedi in addition. That is massive and it is going to affect everything, not just transport; food is going to be affected,” Mr. Kwetey said.

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“Much more hardship is going to come. In this day and age when you have hardships, Ghanaians take a lot of comfort in going on social media, laughing at jokes and all that and that one as well has now seen an increase in tax.”

“I think generally, Ghanaians need to have massive awakening that our friends have just danced around and today, the reality, they cannot handle.”

On Monday, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, presented the mid-year budget review on the floor of Parliament.

The Minister said the John Mahama government had led the country into many power deals with Independent Power Producers that was compelling Ghana to spend about $500 million annually on power it does not consume.

Mr. Kwetey, who is the MP for Ketu South constituency, described the Finance Minister’s claim as incorrect.

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He explained that there was an actual need for the power since Ghana’s other source of power such as the Bui and Akosombo hydro dams were under-operating and producing less power.

“At that moment when we were getting these IPPs, the whole hydro side was not in operation. There was a massive shortfall so these were not excess capacity. They [NPP] have been lucky because the level of the Akosombo Dam has come up so now they don’t need as much power as we needed because at that time we actually had no option,” he added. 

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