Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Ghana’s Agric Minister has encouraged farmers to welcome the government’s proposed electronic levy (E-levy), which seeks to help the country widen its tax net as read by the Finance Minister in the 2022 budget.
According to the Agric Minister, who was responding to opposition MPs in Parliament describing its entrenched position on the E-Levy as worrying.
He said the Akufo-Addo administration has assisted farmers with several programmes, adding that the introduction of the E-levy will help raise money to support them with several interventions.
The Minister who was quoted by Citi News said: “There are two markets in Ghana; the subsidized fertilizer market, which is the planting for foods and jobs, and the commercial or open market for anyone who wants to buy. These two markets have existed side by side, but because the subsidized fertilizer market was so big, there was very little for the open market. Now with the price increases on the open market, we are also facing problems with revenue collection in Ghana and everywhere else because international trades have also shrunk”.
However, during his remarks when he visited one of the government’s built warehouses at Gambaga in the North East Region on his first-day visit to the region as part of his 13-day tour of the northern sector.
He said, “We get most of our government revenue from international trade – imports and exports. That is why it’s become necessary for this government to look for alternative sources of revenue to close the gap, hence the introduction of the electronic levy. The opposition (NDC) is making the electronic levy a big issue. What they don’t realize is that it’s affecting other areas. So if we are to remove the levy, where are we going to find the money to give subsidies to farmers? There would be nothing,” he stated.
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