NPP delivering 'hell' after "promising heaven" – Minority

The Minority in Parliament has urged Ghanaians to brace themselves for more hardship in the coming days as they predict doom for the country.

According to the Ranking Member of Parliament's Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, the NPP government, even though “promised heaven on earth, is rather delivering hell to the good people of the country”.

At a breakfast dialogue on the 2017/2018 budget and their projections for the mid-year, Mr Forson predicted a downward economic trend due to what he described as mismanagement by the Nana Akufo Addo-led government.

The caucus also cautioned government to desist from what they described as reckless borrowing and also apologise to Ghanaians for failing to deliver on its promises.

“In a usual populist rhetoric, they characterised taxes introduced by the past government as nuisance taxes, in that it has very low revenue yield and stifled private sector growth,” he said, adding that: “Institutional and structural rigidity of the economy will suggest to any economist that the relationship between tax cuts, economic growth and revenue are more likely to be inelastic”.

He said: "It is unthinkable and naive for any economist to assume that cutting or worse still eliminating taxes, concurrent with expansion in expenditure, in a small open economy like Ghana’s, with a developing private sector, would immediately translate into economic growth, and increased tax revenue".

For him, “The increase in tax revenue will not be enough to offset the loss in revenue as a result of tax cuts”, a situation, he said the economy is currently experiencing.

According to Mr Forson, the public debt is now GHS154 billion excluding the energy bond of GHS4.4 billion.

He estimated the debt to hit GHS 173 billion, explaining that the country is gradually heading into debt distress.