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Economic and finance lecturer with the University of Ghana, Dr Patrick Assuming, says it wouldn’t have been “prudent” for the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to introduce new taxes in the Mid-Year Budget 2023, in the face of economic hardship.
He emphasized that Ghanaians would have rejected new taxes if the Finance Minister had attempted to introduce same.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Citi FM, Dr Assuming, stated “The Finance Minister would have been mindful that imposing new taxes wouldn’t have been countenanced by Ghanaians. Given the current circumstances, the Finance Minister had contemplated that it wouldn’t be prudent to introduce new taxes. It would have been very problematic if the Finance Minister had contemplated bringing in any new taxes”.
Reacting to the government’s decision not to ask for additional money to spend, he indicated, “I think the Minister’s decision not to ask for more money was the idea that we are not raising as much revenue as initially projected. Given our current circumstances, the last thing we want to do is to run an even bigger deficit and pile up more debts. That is the context in which he said we are not going to ask for more money to spend. If we are not able to raise as much as we want, the last thing we should be doing is to be spending more than we have collected”.
Dr Assuming cited that the fact that the government has been able to make some gains in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, does not mean that the economy has turned.
“Because we are doing this Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, we have made some decisions, and we are going through negotiations, and we have received some money from IMF programme. You get the sense that some indicators are not looking bad as they were before. It doesn’t mean that we have even turned the corner. It will be too premature to say the economy has turned,” the Economist pointed out.
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