The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has expressed its displeasure and frustrations on the government’s decision to reverse the benchmark value discounts on selected imported goods.

The latest decision by Government, the NDC said, further accentuates Dr. Bawumia’s place as the most deceitful Politician in Ghana’s history.

“It will be recalled that sometime in the year 2019, Dr. Bawumia was all over the place pontificating that Ghana’s Ports were one of the most expensive in the sub-region and that government had decided to introduce discounted benchmark values in order to facilitate more trade volumes, make our ports more competitive, reduce smuggling and increase government revenues from the Ports”.
NDC

Speaking at the party’s Headquarters in Accra today, January 5, 2022, the National Communications Officer for the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, stated that the terrible decision comes at a time when the national currency is depreciating and world commodity prices are increasing at an alarming rate, with freight charges and port handling charges being extremely high.

“More importantly, the callous decision by government to reverse benchmark value discounts comes at a time Ghanaian businesses, startups, parents and households are reeling under a yoke of excessive taxation, persistent increases in fuel prices and high cost of living never before witnessed in the anals of our country”.
NDC

Prices to go up by 30%- 50% in the coming days

Sammy Gyamfi explained that the decision to reverse the benchmark value discounts effectively means is that, prices of the affected items will all go up by 30%- 50% in the coming days.

“These increases which will eventually be passed on to Ghanaians will further escalate prices of general goods and services in the country and exacerbate the severe hardships Ghanaians are already reeling under. This will ultimately increase the cost of doing business in the country, negatively affect turnover of businesses and the volume of trade in the country, and lead to the collapse of many businesses and jobs”.
NDC

According to the National Communications Officer for the NDC, “in short, import duties will be far higher than they were before April 2019 when the benchmark value discounts were introduced, in view of the continuous free fall of the Cedi and the raft of new crippling tax measures that government has introduced since April 2019”.

It will be recalled that sometime in April 2019, government through Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia announced a 30% and 50% discount on the benchmark values of imported vehicles and general goods respectively. The NDC noted that sadly, but unsurprisingly, government has decided to scrap these discounts on 44 categories of imported goods.

Self-inflicted economic challenges

The NDC stated that this catastrophic “decision has been occasioned by the self-inflicted economic malaise we presently find ourselves in, with our economy in tatters and government simply unable to find money to do anything”.

“Furthermore, the reversal of benchmark value discounts on selected imported goods reinforces our long-held view that this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government is an insensitive and callous administration which does not have the wellbeing of the Ghanaian people at heart. These are the very people who promised among other things to move this country from taxation to production, but have yet again pulled another deception on Ghanaians relative to import duty and Port charges. Never has a government been this cunning and untruthful to the people in our history as a country”.
NDC

Therefore, COVID-19 can neither be a reasonable justification for the reversal of benchmark discounts on imported products nor the imposition of unprecedented hardships and misery on Ghanaians by this government, the NDC stated. On the contrary, the NDC emphasized that it is down to crass economic mismanagement spurred by a toxic combination of unbridled borrowing and reckless spending on misplaced priorities that have brought us here.