The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has demanded of the Nana Addo/Bawumia led NPP government to as a matter of urgency scrap the nuisance taxes put on the fuel products to ease already burdened poor Ghanaians.
The NDC expressed anger that the ruling NPP with Dr. Mahamoudu Bawumia as the head of the government economic team, posed taxes like the Energy Sector Levies, twenty pesewas on a liter of diesel and petrol.
The party further demanded that the new increment of eighteen pesewas on a kilogram of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG, should also be scrapped.
At a news conference in Accra, the National Communication Officer of the NDC, Comrade Sammy Gyamfi, stated that the high cost of living Ghanaians are experiencing under President Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia has largely been occasioned by increases in prices of petroleum products over the last four and half years.
Comrade Lawyer Gyamfi posited that if the government will heed to advice by scraping those nuisance taxes will help reduce prices of diesel and petrol drastically.
He further explained that this would stabilize the ever-rising prices of general goods and services which will go a long way to ease the suffering Ghanaians are going through.
He added that if the government failed to heed the wise counsel as the NDC always do, prices of general goods and services will continue to soar, hardships in the country will continue to worsen and Ghanaians will continue to suffer.
In addition, Comrade Lawyer Gyamfi stated that the rampant and persistent increase in the prices of fuel products witnessed under the watch of President Akufo-Addo and his deceptive Vice, Dr. Bawumia, are a direct product of their insensitive and bad leadership.
He pointed out that the introduction of new draconian taxes on Petroleum products like the introduction of twenty (20) pesewas Energy Sector Levy on every liter of diesel and petrol; the increase of eighteen (18) pesewas in Energy Sector Levy Act per Kilogram of LPG; the introduction of a ten (10) pesewas sanitation “Borla” tax on every liter of diesel and petrol, the introduction of a one-percent (1%) COVID levy on National Health Insurance Levy and Value Added Tax, along with the free-fall of the Ghana Cedi has been occasioned by their gross economic mismanagement, as the major factors responsible for the persistent increase in the prices of fuel products.
Lawyer Gyamfi reiterated that the introduction of these regressive and draconian taxes by President Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia who berated the erstwhile Mahama regime for “over-taxing” Ghanaians and promised to move Ghana from taxation to production when elected, smacks of deception and insensitivity of monumental proportions.
He added that in the last three months alone, the taxes of suffering Ghanaians worth over Ten million Ghana Cedis, equivalent to Hundred billion old Cedis have been wasted by the government on the renting of hyper expensive private jets for President Akufo-Addo’s trips to Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
“This was after they wasted a whopping 64 million Ghana Cedis on similar trips of the Presidency in only nine months in the year 2019. Sadly, this is happening at a time our state Presidential Jet, the Dassault Falcon 900 Ex which was bought by the Kuffuor administration at a price of Forty Five million Dollars is available and in a pristine condition”. He opined.
Mr. Gyamfi concluded by calling on the government to consider the review of other existing taxes on fuel products in line with proposals submitted to the Ministry of Finance and Energy by the Chamber Of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) and other stakeholders in the downstream petroleum sector.
He stated that the demands are not borne out of cheap politics or partisanship, but the realities the citizenry presently find themselves in and are intended for the collective good and welfare of all Ghanaians.
Mr. Gyamfi reminded President Akufo-Addo and Dr Bawumia to respect and uphold the sanctity of their political pact with the Ghanaian electorate saying Ghanaians did not bargain for this level of tax burden on the prices of petroleum products in the 2020 December general election.
Story By: Delali A. Awuyeh/Nationaltymes.com
