Mid-Year Budget review: Make room for expenditure cuts, avoid tax increases – Minority

The Minority in Parliament has disclosed that they will block any attempt by the government to increase taxes during the mid-year budget review.

According to the Minority leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the NDC MPs will ensure the government reduces its expenditure instead of impoverishing the already suffering Ghanaians with taxes.

He insisted that there is a massive room for expenditure cuts.

“I won’t be surprised if the government introduces new measures because if you read the Memorandum for Economic and Financial Policies(MEFP), the IMF is asking for additional measures of about 1% of GDP and I don’t know where that is going to come from.”

“If I look carefully, there is a massive room for expenditure cuts, but the government obviously is indiscipline, and they don’t seem to care.”

“They want to live large on the back of the people of Ghana. So they need to cut that kind of expenditure and if I am the one in charge or responsible, I would rather go for a cut in expenditure as against a tax measure or an increase in taxation,” he said.

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is expected to present the 2023 mid-year budget review to Parliament on July 25.

This will be the first time he is doing this after the government successfully signed onto an IMF deal.

Industry players have already called on the government to use the opportunity to remove some tax handles especially tax on sanitary pads amongst others.