The Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has charged the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to provide solutions to the country’s economic crisis.
In an interview on Citi TV, he suggested that, if the National Democratic Congress (NDC) thinks criticizing the governments move to roll out new taxes, including VAT on electricity and the Emissions Levy is that bad for the country, then, they should provide alternatives.
“We are mindful of the position of the citizenry, one that we know is difficult. But under these circumstances what will be the NDC’s solution, whose inclination will be tax for government revenue? What will be their response? We need to have the NDC tell us what their response will be. The government hears what citizens are talking about, the NPP naturally will not apply this tax under any circumstance. They are the taxers, we use tax as a means to stimulate production,” he said.
Ahiagbah emphasized that the country is facing economic difficulty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, leaving government no other option than to implement new taxes.
“We are taking these medicines not because we are healthy. These are not preventive medicines; these are curable medicines we are taking as a country to be able to heal ourselves from the impact of the disease that we are suffering, in this case, COVID-19″, he added.
He further alleged that, if the NDC were in power, there would claim that the NDC would have imposed much higher taxes on Ghanaians due to their political ideologies.
“What will be the NDC’s response, given the problems that we are in because knowing their disposition as social democrats, their tax orientation will be different from ours. We will impose fewer taxes but, by their socialization, they will introduce more taxes. So between us [NPP] and them [NDC], there’s differentiation. The NPP is a liberal-conservative political party; our disposition is not to increase taxes, but the difficulty in which we have found ourselves [compels us to do otherwise”, he stated.
