Scoreboard: Ghana's economy could perform better – Seth Terkper

Former Finance Minister Seth Terkper reiterated the current policies of the government that he said have left the economy upset.

The government of Ghana can not control several factors, such as soaring crude oil prices and strengthening the US dollar, Terkper said. But taxes, he said, have swelled to new extremes.

"VAT has had a negative impact," he told Raymond Acquah, host of the magazine Joy News, at a round table badyzing the performance of nuclear power plants after nearly two years of power.

While the experts had incorrectly predicted that the VAT would increase, the tax was "restructured". Currently, the VAT rate is 12.5% ​​and has been separated from the 2.5% national health levy that was previously combined. VAT is levied on all taxable suppliers and imports, in addition to a flat rate of 3% for small businesses.

Terker explained that the way taxes have been raised has affected many members of the working clbad in Ghana, particularly in the service sector, who are already working for derisory wages.

"You can not affect the woman who sells on the side of the road," he warned. "The impact on the service sector has a negative impact on the economy," he added.

At the presentation of the Finance Minister's 2019 budget, Ken Ofori-Atta announced that under the administration of Akufo-Addo, 17.5% VAT / NHIL had been removed for banknotes Aircraft, financial services and some imported medicines.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta at the presentation of the 2019 budget

But taxes have been levied in other sectors. In August, Akufo-Addo indirectly informed a congregation that he was considering taxing the churches.

A month earlier, during Ofori-Atta's mid-year review, he introduced a new luxury vehicle tax, a tax for owners of cars with a displacement of 3.0 liters or more.

"The difficult truth is that once you enter the sphere of wealth and prosperity, you necessarily slip into the tax and accounting language," Akufo-Addo said in August.

According to the manifesto of the nuclear power plant, "a strong economy is defined by its stability, its rate of growth, the levels and the number of taxes, the extent of the added value, the creation of wealth and the prosperity of the citizens.

Despite Terker's fiscal concerns, he seems optimistic about the trajectory of the Ghanaian economy, concluding that "we are on the right track".

He refused to answer the question of how he would score the economy on a scale of 1 to 10. "If you ask me to score the government, it means you ask me to score myself," he said. He's joking.