News:
Kwame Governs Agbodza, MP for Adaklu
March 4, 2022
Mr. Kwame Governs Agbodza, Member of Parliament for Adaklu has accused government of being insincere with the people of Ghana with the controversial E-Levy. According to Mr Agbodza at a press briefing with the media in parliament, the real intention of government is to securitize the levy to allow the government to borrow more. This, however, is contrary to what government has told the Ghanaian public that the E-Levy is important to ensure the government pulls a break on borrowing, and over reliance on the Bretton Woods Institutions.
Mr. Kwame Governs Agbodza, sought to find out from the Minister for Roads and Highways the estimated loss of revenue till date due to the cessation of collection of road tolls as contained in the Ministry’s press release dated 17th November, 2021.
But the Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Attah in his response said no amount was lost because in the approved budget, road tolls have been zero rated. Mr. Agbodza, however, contends that that assertion by the Minister cannot be correct; indicating that the minister announced the cessation of the collection of tolls from the date the budget was read. “The budget was not approved on the same date, so surely there was about 25-30 days gap between the day that the announcement was made and the day the budget was actually approved.”
Significantly, he said “the NPP government pretended that the E-Levy was all about helping Ghana to stop borrowing that we should be on our own; we should generate our own revenue and use it to do the things that we needed to do. Shockingly, in the minister’s answer today, he led the cat out of the bag by saying that when we pay E-Levy, the government was going to securitize it to take bigger loans with the E-Levy”.
The effect, therefore, is that “the E-Levy would give government the opportunity to do bigger borrowing than they are doing now. E-Levy would not stop us from borrowing because when you borrow you must pay back”.
He said the minister’s attempt to attribute the cessation of the collection of the road tolls to it not generating enough revenue is unjustifiable. “It is a fact that in the 2022 budget road fund is supposed to generate at least 2 billion Ghana cedis; in 2021 the road tolls accrued over 78 million Ghana cedis, a government we are told is broke, 78 million Ghana cedis could have paid at least NABCO people”, he emphasized.
Ghanamps.com