E-levy yet to be considered
Government is happy borrowing, says Ricketts-Hagan
Member for Parliament for Cape Coast South Constituency, Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan, has asked government to be cautious of their borrowing as they will be held accountable.
According to him, the government in the 2022 budget has indicated that they will continue to borrow up until 2025 if the E-Levy is approved.
Reacting to the Roads Minster's indication that the E-Levy will be used as collateral for government to borrow more, the lawmaker said;
“…When you look in the budget, you realize that there is a section that looks at how the deficit is financed over years, you will actually realize that as they have factored in the E-Levy that government will still be borrowing up until 2025, which is what we have in the budget and the borrowing goes up every year.”
“But we want them to understand that they have to be accountable for things that they are doing if not today, it will be tomorrow,” he said.
Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan further suggested that government has shown that they do not intend to stop borrowing even with the introduction of E-Levy.
“So it is actually not true that if they do the E-Levy, they will stop borrowing and they have demonstrated here today. The Minister by his answers said they actually brought the E-levy to go and do more borrowing. So this government is borrowing happily, that is basically what they know,” Ricketts Hagan said.
Meanwhile, Roads Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has indicated that the government is seeking to use E-Levy as collateral after its passage in Parliament.
According to him, government in its wisdom will use the E-Levy to bring in greater revenue that would be securitized and used to raise a bond for road infrastructure.
“Government is fully determined to use all forms of revenue into the road fund to build road infrastructure in the country including the revenue from tolls. Mr Speaker, there are four main sources, one is what we get from the fuel levy, the other three sources are from the toll booths, from the DVLA sources and the vehicles that transcend on the corridors of our country. The three together constitute nearly 6 per cent. The Government in its wisdom has called for the passage of E-Levy to bring in more revenue to build the road infrastructure of our country. So the government is looking forward to the passage of E-levy that will bring in greater revenue that would be securitized and then used to raise a bond if possible, to build the road sector infrastructure. So government direction and policy is to bring in a better form of the collection because the toll revenue is built in the proposed E-Levy,” he said in parliament on March 4, 2022.
Member for Parliament for Cape Coast South Constituency, Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan