The 2.5% increase in Value Added Tax has been labelled disappointing by the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) (VAT).
The budget for the fiscal year 2023 has been referred to as empty by the minority in the parliament.
The caucus believes that Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta has to be reminded that he is the finance minister and not an English minister.
According to Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the ranking member of the parliament’s finance committee, “all he offered us was grammar.”
He claimed that Mr. Ofori-Aatta had “explicitly advised us that the Ghanaian economy is, in fact, in an Intensive Care Unit.”
“This minister has informed us that going forward to the year 2023, there is going to be a freeze on employment at a time when we know that unemployment, particularly with the youth, is in excess of 50 per cent,” Dr Forson noted.
“The caucus contends that the measures announced by the government, as part of efforts to generate revenue would only worsen the economic condition of Ghanaians,” he continued.
While presenting the budget in parliament on Thursday, Mr Ofori-Atta, among other things, announced an increase in VAT from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent.