By Edzorna Francis Mensah.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has called on the government to scrap the newly introduced taxes on fuel products such as the Energy Sector Levies of 20 pesewas on a litre of diesel and petrol as well as the new increase of 18 pesewas on a kilogram of LPG.
The party at a News Conference addressed by the National Communication Officer, Sammy Gyamfi at the party’s headquarters on Monday, October 18, 2021, also charged the government to also scrap the new sanitation levy (“Borla” tax) of 10 pesewas on a litre of diesel and petrol describing the taxes as “needless and useless”.
According to him, “the Special Petroleum Tax (SPT) of 46 pesewas on a litre of diesel and petrol as an SPT was introduced by the erstwhile NDC/Mahama Administration sometime in 2016 when crude oil export price fell far below the government’s budgetary projections.”
He said, “the objective was to shore up the government’s revenue for development purposes. But given the fact that crude oil export price has increased from below $40 to above $80 per barrel currently, far above the government’s budgetary projection of $54.75 per barrel, it is untenable for the government to still maintain the SPT on the price of petroleum products now, and same should be scrapped immediately.”
“This is particularly so, when the government’s revenue from the oil sector for the second quarter of this year 2021, went up by almost 60%, equivalent to US$89.1 million, as compared to oil revenue for the same period in the previous year,” he stressed.
The NDC said the government should also consider the review of other existing taxes on fuel products in line with proposals submitted to the Ministry of Finance and Energy by the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) and other stakeholders in the downstream petroleum sector.
“The cascading effect of these draconian tax measures has among other things led to an escalation in the prices of fuel products, transport fares, building materials, food products and other commodities on the market, without a commensurate increase in incomes, thereby making cost of living unbearable for the vast majority of Ghanaians. This is the cause of the excruciating economic hardships Ghanaians are currently experiencing”, according to the NDC.
