'Budget should support growth of local businesses'

The Founder and Leader of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Mr Kofi Akpaloo, has called on the government to design the country’s budget in such a way that it will not suppress the growth of indigenous businesses.

According to him, the country’s budgets, over the past years, have focused on taxing the business community, without offering them any packages to support their operations.

“This is why we have a lot of complaints and concerns from the business community in the country because they feel they are being dealt with in a bad way. Businesses and the people in general are being made to pay more taxes, but little is done for them,” Mr Akpaloo said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

He was responding to the recent mid-year supplementary budget announced by the government in Parliament last Monday.

Highlights

The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, presented the 2019 mid-year budget review to Parliament last Monday, during which he proposed that the tax on luxury vehicles be waived, while the Energy Sector Levy (ESLA) and the Communications Service Tax (CST) be increased.

“The government proposes to increase the Energy Sector Levy by 20 pesewas per litre for petrol and diesel and eight pesewas per kilogramme for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), so as to increase the inflows to enable the government to issue additional bonds to honour our energy sector debt obligations,” Mr Ofori-Atta indicated.

He also proposed that the CST should be increased from six to nine per cent.

LPG surprised

Reacting to the announcement, Mr Akpaloo said the party was surprised that the government used the occasion to announce new taxes when it should rather have come out with packages to support local businesses.

He said most local businesses were having a tough time sustaining their operations, let alone make profit, adding that it was unfair that the government, in the face of all those challenges, would still increase taxes.

“How can businesses grow when all that the government does is to take something from them without giving them anything to get it back?” Mr Akpaloo asked.

He said LPG “does not support any programme or policies that do not build industries, support growth and alleviate poverty”.

Other ways

Outlining some ways the government could use to generate revenue, Mr Akpaloo proposed an increment in tolls, indicating that the money accrued from that could be used to upgrade the country’s road network.

He said since the road toll was increased in 2009 from 11 pesewas to 50 pesewas, the amount had remained the same for the past 10 years.

“Now that the luxury tax on vehicles has been scrapped, the government should increase the road toll to generate revenue for road projects,” Mr Akpaloo said.