
Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko
A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, says the intense opposition from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) against E-Levy and other government policies had forced the country to seek economic refuge from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He said no government, in this current situation, could have avoided going to the Fund for support, especially when its revenue mobilisation efforts were met with fierce opposition from Parliament and the public.
In an interview with the media over the weekend, Mr Otchere-Darko indicated that the Akufo-Addo-led government was left with no appropriate option than engaging the IMF, considering the delay in passing the E-Levy bill, among other policies.
“When it takes you six months to pass a policy, and it’s a policy of taxation, what happens? It’s easy for the opposition to lash around it and then build public sentiment against it because this tax would have affected a lot of people, but then that’s the only way.
“I think when you have an opposition party which believes that nothing matters than political capitalisation of situations, and can go out to the public and say that ‘yes, praise us because we stopped the government from getting its way in raising revenue to solve the situation and the problems facing the ordinary Ghanaian,’ then I think those are the things we need to focus on,” he noted
Thwarting efforts
He said the government had envisioned a dicey situation submitting the Electronic Transaction Levy bill to the Parliament, but the Minority did everything it could to delay the passage of the E-Levy.
“We have a Parliament where it is not a situation where you could say the Minority would have their say and government would have its way; we don’t have such a Parliament. If you remember, the Minority Leader was actually bragging, taking credit for frustrating government’s attempt to raise money, delaying that by six months. I am not too sure how any government in Ghana’s situation would have rescued that because you have a major way of raising revenue which has been frustrated for six months,” he lamented.
Mr Otchere-Darko further indicated that Parliament was to be blame for the current state of the country because it frustrated government plans in rebounding the economy.
“There were challenges; yes, government came with its policies to see how to address those challenges and those policies were frustrated by the very Parliament that we have. Yes, we are in a difficulty, but if you are government and don’t intend to go to the IMF but you are put in a situation where your avenues for raising revenue are being closed – whether through parliamentary action or by public rejection – then you have to tackle it,” he stressed.
Trust NPP
According to him, although the Akufo-Addo administration is soliciting financial support from the International Monetary Fund, the NPP has a track record of being dependable in times of crisis.
“I will say to Ghanaians to trust the NPP because they have shown that when they meet crisis they find solutions to those crises. The Akufo-Addo government is undertaking projects that will transform the fortunes of the country,” he added.
While admitting that the country is currently facing some challenges, Mr Otchere-Darko reiterated that the NPP administration has the competence to steer the affairs of the nation back on track.
“We are facing fiscal challenges now. It is not peculiar to Ghana, but our case has been made worse by the weaknesses we had in our system historically. Nobody wanted to go to IMF; John Mahama didn’t want to go to IMF in 2015. Ghana didn’t want to go to IMF, but we are a member of it, and if we need that risk pipe to help us get back on track let’s take full advantage of it,” he noted.