By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Ghanaians periodically send our representatives to Parliament to rationally deliberate on matters of moment to our well-being and livelihhod with utmost sensitivity, and not to unilaterally execute socioeconomic policies like the cynical operatives of a colonial regime. This, sadly, appears to have been the case several days ago, when President Mahama and his henchmen and women in Parliament steamrolled over the legitimate concerns of the main parliamentary opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), by unilaterally raising the already prohibitive Value-Add Tax percentage of 12.5 percent to 17.5 percent (See "NDC Makes Governance Look 'Childish' and 'Infantile' - Minority Leader" Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 11/18/13).
That such gratuitous and flagrantly cynical imposition of tax increment on basic consumable items is inexcusably inimical to the industrial development of the country, is a fundamental fact that can hardly escape the common sense and studious imagination of even a high school economics student. As we all know, there is a piddling little that our country produces beyond such industrial raw materials as cocoa, copra, gold and, now, crude oil; and so it is not clear precisely what good an exponential increment in VAT would have on the general development of our local industries, short of effectively running our few courageous "grassroots" entrepreneurs out of business.
If such measure, on the other hand, is intended to make foreign-manufactured merchadise less attractive to the Ghanaian buyer, then Mr. Mahama and his cohorts had better clearly and credibly explain to the suffering Ghanaian worker and civil servant, exactly how they intend to remarkably boost the quality and output of our local industries, both private and public. In the absence of any such constructive agenda as the foregoing, it clearly and peevishly appears that the VAT increment was primarily effected as a means of augmenting government revenue.
Ordinarily, there would be nothing remiss with such administrative tack, were it not for the fact of the Mahama regime having recklessly demonstrated its wanton disregard for fiscal discipline and accountability. I was also amused by the National Democratic Congress government's decision to unilaterally impose a 2.5 percent National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), after Messrs. Atta-Mills and Mahama, and now Mahama and Amissah-Arthur, had consistently and vehemently hoodwinked the Ghanaian voter into believing that a one-time payment was all that was required to keep the Kufuor-minted National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) afloat.
For this writer, though, what makes the most recent VAT increment objectionable is the way and manner in which Mr. Mahama and his cronies went about the same, by curtly side-stepping parliamentary protocol, if the Parliamentary Minority Leader, Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, is to be taken at his word. In other words, if, indeed, the government's intention to increase VAT was not formally presented before the full-house of our National Assembly for exhaustive deliberation, then the entire policy initiative must be promptly rescinded. And if the government still feels the imperative need for such an increment, then it ought to follow the constitutionally mandated protocol for doing so.
Cynically responding to such flagrant breach of democratic protocol, by declaring a 10-percent salary retrenchment, or pay cut, for grossly overpaid cabinet appointees, actually insults the intelligence of the Ghanaian electorate.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Nov. 20, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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