NPP increased VAT through the back door - Fifi Kwetey

The National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Member of Parliament for the Ketu South Constituency, Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey, says Government increased Value Added Tax (VAT) subtly.

In reaction to the recent Standard and Poor’s (S&P), Ghana’s sovereign credit ratings has gone up from B- to B.

According to Mr. Kwetey ‘’the real ratings of the country should come from the ordinary Ghanaian’s pocket. Government played to the Gallery and promised to reduce taxes and could not raise enough revenue to meet expenditure. So they had to go through the backdoor of Parliament to increase VAT.”

He made these statements in an interview with Kwame Afrifa-Mensah on ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ on Happy FM. He also stated that “it is true that S&P Global has given Ghana a positive rating but it does not have real value because companies are struggling and laying off workers.Also fuel prices are going up.”

However, a credit rating is used by sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other investors to gauge the credit worthiness of Ghana thus having a big impact on the country’s borrowing costs. S&P has revised Ghana’s transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment to ‘B+’ from ‘B’. The stable outlook balances Ghana’s fairly robust growth prospects, decreasing inflation, and narrower current account deficits against risks from still-high budget deficits and a high stock of public sector debt.