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If You Want Ghana Beyond Aid, Pay E-levy; We Can’t Keep Begging – Akufo-Addo
It is in the public interest of all Ghanaians for the e-levy to be passed into law to expand the tax burden which is currently being shouldered by less than 3 million people and to also save the country from relying on foreign funds, President Nana Akufo-Addo has said.
In his keynote address at the 2022 National Labour Conference at Kwahu-Nkwatia in the Eastern Region, the President said: “We cannot continue to allow less than 10%, specifically 7.8%; that is 2.4 million people of the population, to carry the direct tax burden of 30.8 million people”.
“We must provide an opportunity for every Ghanaian to contribute toward nation-building”, he said.
“The proposed e-levy is such an innovative fiscal measure which will help improve our tax-to-GDP ratio on an equitable basis”, Nana Akufo-Addo observed.
“I believe strongly that it is in the public interest that it should be enacted into law”, he asserted.
“We cannot continue to live on foreign savings,” he declared.
The President said: “It is time we accepted the full implications of our goal of ‘Ghana beyond aid’ and design our fiscal profile accordingly”.
“This will be one of the surest ways of expanding the tax base for mobilising our own resources,” he said.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and some civil society organisations have strongly been against the levy, which was proposed by the 2022 budget to raise, at least, GHS6.9 billion every year.
