Akufo-Addo, Ofori Atta must be blamed for Telcos tariff hike - Sam George

The National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram Sam George Nettey has urged Ghanaians to blame President Akufo Addo and his cousin the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta for the imminent tariff increase in the telecommunications sector.

According to him, the duo have purposed in their hearts to burden Ghanaians with more taxes even though the generality of the public are complaining of hardship.

The upward adjustment of the tariff will take effect on November 1, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications notified Wednesday in a statement on behalf of AirtelTigo, MTN and Vodafone.

The tariff medications, according to the chamber aims at giving “effect to the conversion of National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) and GETFund Levy (GETFL) into levies that are not subject to the input-output mechanism, and delinking them from VAT by removing the option of input tax deductibility, thereby giving both levies a unique and different legal identity and distinguished from VAT.

Speaking to Kasapa News, Sam George Nettey who’s a member of the Communications Committee of Parliament stated that the Minority caucus cannot be blamed for watching on for the introduction and passage of the new taxes by the House, as they had earlier unequivocally laid bare the government’s intention to increase the rate of Value Added Tax (VAT).

“When the bill was presented in Parliament the Minority side in July held a round table discussion where we told Ghanaians that, that budget was laden with new taxes that will tax bring a lot of discomfort for the public in terms of communication services. Now it is clear that there’ll will be tariff reviews on voice and text services, that of mobile money tax will be introduced in the next budget to be presented in November. We opposed it and so cannot be blamed in anyway for allowing its introduction.”