Mahama has appetite for tax increment - Nana Addo

The Flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Addo has accused the Mahama led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of having insatiable appetite for increasing taxes in the country.

According to him, the incessant taxes which hang on citizens necks do not augur well for national development.

He observed that Ghanaians are already over-burdened with economic hardships.

Adding his voice to public outcry in a press statement on the new billing system by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), he pointed out, “a large part of it is due to the taxes, the insatiable appetite of the Mahama government for taxes – 10% energy levy which is charged for both domestic and commercial uses; a service charge of GH¢7 flat rate for every consumer and a VAT of 17½% for commercial users’.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) on Tuesday ordered ECG ‘suspend the implementation of their new billing software until further notice’.

Nana Addo lamented that the rapid increase in rates put Ghanaian companies in an uncompetitive way.

“If you look at the rates we are charging industry as well as domestic users, for electricity in Ghana, compared for instance, to Cote d’Ivoire, already, it puts our enterprises in a very uncompetitive comparison. In Ghana, my understanding is that the tariff for commercial users is 32 US cents/kilowatt hour. The Ivorian equivalent is 13 US cents/kilowatt hour. Again, for domestic users, we are talking about 19.28 US cents/kilowatt hour, when Cote d’Ivoire equivalent is a tariff of 9 US cents/kilowatt hour.

I believe all of these figures can be significantly reduced to be able to bring the electricity tariff system in our country to a much more competitive relationship with that of our neighbours and what is going on in the region. It is important for us to recognize in Ghana that, whatever we are doing, we are doing so in a globally competitive context, and if we don’t recognize that, many of the decisions we make about the management of our economy are going to put us at a disadvantage from the get go,’ he said.

The Flagbearer of NPP urged public authorities to reduce electricity tariffs in the country.