The General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia has described the maiden budget of the President Nana Akufo-Addo government as a deceptive budget which is sweet looking but bitter in reality.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta today [Thursday] presented the 2017 Budget Statement to Members of Parliament (MPs) at the Parliament House in Accra announcing the abolishing of the 1% special import levy; market tolls for Kayayei; the 17.5% VAT/NHIL on financial services; 17.5% VAT/NHIL on domestic airline tickets; 5% VAT/NHIL on real estate sales; import levies on spare parts; and replacing the 17.5% VAT/NHIL with 3% flat rate for traders.
Presenting what he described as the 'Asempa' Budget, he announced the allocation of GHC 400 million cedis for the implementation of a comprehensive free public SHS programme, starting with the 2017/2018 academic year; the allocation of the equivalent of $1million each of the 275 constituencies in the country; the allocation of 219.5million cedis as seed money to set up a Zongo Development Fund and the restoration of allowances for teacher and nursing trainees.
Many, especially those benefitting from the tax cuts, have hailed the Budget Statement and described it as relieving and a step in the right direction.
But speaking on Asempa FM's Ekosii Sen moments after Mr Ofori Atta's presentation, the NDC General Secretary was of the opinion that the budget was purely made of deception and nothing else.
According to him, the government had only succeeded in making realignments to the existing resource structure of the state in order to fulfill some of its numerous promises instead creating additional sources to fund those projects as originally promised.
"Government is just reducing the common fund and GETFund in order to be able to fulfill its one million dollars to each constituency promise. This is pure 'sakawa'", General Mosquito, as he is popularly called, stated.
He, therefore, advised Ghanaians not to be fooled by the abolishment of taxes and the introduction of the Free SHS because the NPP had not shown any special competence and was only deceiving them.
"This is a 419 budget. On the face of it, the budget seems sweet but it contains bitter pills. There are hard times ahead for all of us and we should brace ourselves."
For him, the only positive thing about the budget was the promise to resource the National Identification Authority to complete the National Identification System.Â
"It is one good thing for us if we have a fully functioning national database", he quipped.
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