There’s room for expenditure cuts, we won’t accept tax increases – Minority

African News

During the mid-year budget review, the minority party will obstruct any attempts by the government to raise taxes, according to the minority leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson.

He claims that the NDC MPs will make sure that the government cuts its spending rather than further impoverishing Ghanaians who are already struggling.

He insisted that there is a tonne of room to cut spending.

“I won’t be surprised if the government introduces new measures because if you read the MEFP, the IMF is asking for additional measures of about 1% of GDP and I don’t know where that is going to come from.”

“If I look carefully, there is a massive room for expenditure cuts, but the government obviously is indiscipline, and they don’t seem to care.”

“They want to live large on the back of the people of Ghana. So they need to cut that kind of expenditure and if I am the one in charge or responsible, I would rather go for a cut in expenditure as against a tax measure or an increase in taxation,” he said in an interview with JoyNews.

The mid-year budget review for 2023 will be delivered to Parliament on July 25 by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

He will be doing this for the first time since the government successfully ratified an IMF agreement.

Industry participants have already requested that the government use the occasion to remove some tax handles.
Among other taxes, there is a tax on sanitary napkins.