Akufo-Addo’s government rejecting good advice – Duffuor

The Former Minister of finance and former governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr. Kwabena Duffuor has said the NPP government has forced the electronic transfer levy on Ghanaians because they turned a deaf ear to wise counsel from economic experts such as himself.

Lamenting on his Facebook wall Wednesday morning, he said, “The NPP has progressed in their passage of the unpopular e-levy bill. May it be on record that despite the hardship of the Ghanaian people and disaffection for the e-levy, the NPP ignored these concerns and added to our tax burden.”

Many Ghanaians are expressing public indignation against the government for the passage of the electronic transfer levy Tuesday in parliament.

Just like many economic experts, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor has in the past, offered several suggestions of several alternatives to the roundly unpopular E-levy.

Speaking on Tuesday, February 21, 2021, on Starr FM ahead of the IFS’s forum on domestic revenue mobilization mode, Dr. Duffuor said, “Currently in Ghana, foreign interests are largely the main beneficiaries of our extractive sector at the expense of Ghanaians who benefit from very little revenue from our natural resources”.

He also added, “We must start looking at the sector we have ignored over the years – the extractive sector. A well-managed natural resources center has emerged as the safest route to prosperity in many developed countries such as the USA, UK and Germany. We must go back and renegotiate our mining agreements for higher revenues rather than stick to colonial agreements to the detriment of our people”.

However, like other contrary views from other economic experts, the former bank of Ghana governor’s views appear not to have been considered.