Flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 2024 election, John Dramani Mahama, has expressed concern that the current government is leading the country back to the era of severe power crises known as “dumsor.”
Various regions in the country have been grappling with inconsistent power cuts, causing frustration and resentment among the populace. Many electricity consumers are dissatisfied with the lack of prior communication and explanations regarding the widespread outages.
The government is facing a financial obligation to the West African Pipeline Company (WAPCo) amounting to $19 million. Deputy Minister of Energy, Andrew Egyapa Mercer, confirmed that $13 million has been settled, leaving an outstanding balance of $6 million.
He reassured that the government is actively engaged in discussions with WAPCo to devise a payment plan for the remaining amount.
Additionally, the recent power outage experienced in parts of the capital, Accra, was attributed to a fuel shortage, as explained by the Deputy Minister for Energy.
During a stakeholder meeting with members of the NDC in Sogakope, Volta Region, as part of his “Building Ghana Tour,” Mr. Mahama anticipated that if the NDC regains power, they will inherit power cuts, a challenge the party had successfully addressed during its previous term in office.
“Today ‘dumsor’, they’re treating it like a football because he wants to kick it over the 7th January 2025 line and hand the trouble over to somebody else, and yet we resolved it before they came into office.”
In order to transfer Value Added Tax (VAT) collected from customers who have exceeded their lifeline power consumption, the government has asked the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to communicate with the two nation’s power distribution companies.
Mr. Mahama denounced this action, claiming that it will put additional strain on customers who already pay more for electricity because of current power taxes.
“Today, they’ve put Value Added Tax on electricity bills. And COVID levy, NHIL levy, GETFUND Levy all on electricity bills, and so that’s going to send the cost of your electricity bill up. Already, there was a 29 per cent increase, there was a 19 per cent increase, then they tried to fool us with a 4% increase, and now it’s going up again astronomically” he lamented.
The tariff increases continue to hurt a lot of businesses.
According to John Mahama, cutting back on government spending might assist in lowering the high taxes that have driven up the cost of goods and services.
“It’s making Ghana a very difficult place to do business. All business people are complaining. The owner of this hotel who has given us this resort to do this thing, you should ask him how much he’s paying in utility bills. And yet, because of the mismanagement by the President and his cousin and his Vice President, it has plunged all of us into a difficult situation where they have pledged to the IMF [International Monetary Fund] to raise as much revenue as they can.”
The key is to cut back on your expenses while you are increasing revenue because that is what any rational, sane person would do. Because you can lessen the burden you’re placing on the taxpayer by cutting back on your expenditures.
“If they cut down the expenditure of the Office of the President; they’ve doubled it. Year-on-year budget went up by 82 billion cedis, and so if you reduce the rise of the budget in terms of expenditure, then you could reduce the incidence of tax. You might not need to place Value Added Tax on electricity, so that you pass the relief on to the people of Ghana” the former President noted.
Meanwhile, the former President has assured that the NDC will restrain itself from starting new projects but focus on completing new ones.
“All the projects that they inherited they have abandoned, and they themselves have started projects that they know they cannot complete. And yet, instead of finishing the abandoned and ongoing projects, they have started news projects like agenda 111, some of them are at foundation level, some they’ve raised the block work, but they know that they cannot finish it before they leave.
“So, what they will do is to push them on to somebody else and say that, we started this and you came and you’ve abandoned it. But look at the mess you’ve created, how are we going to get money to finish all those projects” the former President quizzed.
“But I pledge that we will restrain ourselves from starting new projects. Whatever little resources that we come and meet, we will spend it on completing the ongoing and abandoned projects.”
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