Partner and Financial Advisor at Deloitte Ghana, Yaw Lartey, has expressed the need for government to have a plan to graduate from the IMF.
According to him, government must be shrewd in the use of the funds it will be securing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to wean itself from bailouts. He revealed that Ghana must learn from other countries who have secured funds from the IMF and are now progressing with developments of their respective economies.
“We should have a plan to graduate from the IMF and the planned graduation is through industrialisation and also ensuring value addition. That’s what will help us graduate from the IMF and then we wean ourselves from international donors.”
Yaw Lartey
Mr Lartey noted that if government does not use IMF Programme to help the country graduate and wean itself out of the Fund programmes and structural adjustments, then government cannot operationalise the Ghana Beyond Aid.
On his part, a Lecturer at the Faculty of Accounting and Finance at UPSA, Dr John Amoh, called for the revision of the removal of the 100-daily threshold from the Electronic Transaction Levy and some other policy initiatives in the 2023 budget. He indicated that such implementation will make Ghanaians worse-off.
“The introduction of any tax initiative that will make Ghanaians worse-off like the removal of the 100-daily threshold from the E-levy should be looked at. Again, the introduction of this cashless policy by the Ghana Revenue Authority should be continued so as to reduce tax evasion and rake in maximum revenue”.
Dr John Amoh
Dr Amoh argued that if the government is to succeed in its key policies like the Planting for Food and Jobs programme among others, then the minimum income chargeable threshold should be looked at.
Impact of removal of e-levy threshold
It will be recalled that the Minority in Parliament served notice that it will kick against the removal of the threshold for the electronic transfer levy (E-Levy).
Debating the 2023 Budget, the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, stated that such a move would overburden the ordinary Ghanaian hence the decision by the Minority to reject it.
Mr Forson confirmed that the Minority on this matter, will “reject it with all our might and strength”, as it believes that the policy must not be accepted.
Similarly, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Ghana has also described the decision of the government to remove the daily GHC100 threshold as inappropriate. This, according to the Insititute, is because it fails to protect the poor in the current economic crisis.
Reacting to the announcement of a downward review of the e-levy rate from 1.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent in the 2023 Budget, the IEA explained that the government could attain the revenue target and boost usage of electronic transactions if it reviewed the rate further downward to 0.5 percent
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