Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has indicated that Ghanaians will have to pay for the free provision of water and electricity they enjoyed during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in order to fill the economic gap.
Speaking on PM: Express Monday, Mr Nkrumah said that these interventions were only free to Ghanaians at the time and period given by President Akufo-Addo however, they’ll have to pay up now through taxation because the country cannot keep on borrowing.
“When we say free electricity it doesn’t mean that the IPP producer is also going to say because the President has said free electricity I won’t charge for it.”
He noted that the country has spent about ¢19 billion on Covid-19 related issues and that includes the relief package on the utilities.
“But that 19 billion cedis has to be paid for at some point, the liabilities we have incurred has to be paid for,” he indicated Monday night.
“So I am going back to Ofoasi to explain to my people why we need to ensure that we all pay that 1% extra so that we can continue to provide those services for the people of Ghana to protect lives and livelihoods,” he said.
He noted that there is a need to, “get our people collectively across the device to understand that at some point, we have to get out of this economic one-step-forward half-a step-back, sometimes one step forward, two steps backwards conundrum in which we find ourselves.
“To do that, we cannot consistently borrow our way out of our problems, domestic resource mobilisation has to be tweaked and it has to be done in a way that you can raise resources without overburdening the people.”
The Information Minister told JoyNews that “everything we consume in this country is paid for.”
GhanaFeed.com
