The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has rejected claims by the opposition NDC that the Akufo-Addo Government is, contrary to its promise while in opposition, is increasing electricity tariffs rather than reducing them.<\/p>\n
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced a 5.6 per cent increase in electricity tariffs on Monday 30th September, 2019, leading to claims by the opposition that Government had mismanaged the electricity sector, hence the \u201cunprecedented\u201d increase.<\/p>\n
But speaking in Accra on Wednesday 2nd October, 2019 Vice President Bawumia insisted that available records do not support the NDC claim, and a comparative analysis of the records would clearly show which party has burdened Ghanaians with high electricity tariffs.<\/p>\n
The Nana Akufo-Addo government, the Vice President maintained, had kept faith with Ghanaians and had for the first time in Ghana\u2019s history, cumulatively reduced tariffs since assuming office on January 7, 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would have heard that the PURC has increased electricity tariffs by 5.6 per cent. It is very very important for us to have some perspective on this, because electricity has a bearing on the cost of doing business and you have to be having your eye on it so that we don’t overburden businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was the situation before we came into office? I’ll give you a background. In 2010 the average increase in electricity was 89 per cent; 2011 was 10 per cent; 2013 was 78 per cent; 2014 was 28.3 per cent; 2015 was 59.2 per cent. Between 2013 and 2016, just the last four years of the NDC government, the cumulative increase in electricity tariff was cumulatively 166 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is against that background that we said \u2018this is not good for job creation\u2019. If you want to create jobs you have to reduce the burden of electricity tariffs on our people. And this is why when we came in – and it had never been done before – that we reduced electricity prices for businesses by 30 per cent and for households by 17.5 per cent; average of around 22 per cent in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cNotwithstanding that, earlier this year in July there was an increase in electricity prices of 11 per cent and yesterday of 5.6 per cent. When you take the total cumulative increase on average, between 2017 and today you have a cumulative decrease of about 5 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NDC in their last four years increased tariffs by 166 per cent; increase. We have come down since we’ve been in government by about 5 per cent. So it is still boot for charlie wate when you come to electricity tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice President Bawumia emphasised that Government has undertaken a number of far-reaching reforms and also either reduced or abolished a large number of taxes to further ease the cost and hassle of doing business. Some of these measures include automation of the construction permit system, automatic of the application for business operating permit, various reforms at the Registrar General\u2019s department, paperless port systems, etc.<\/p>\n
The Vice President further outlined the various direct tax and import duty reductions so far implemented by the Government. \u201cIn 2017, we reduced or abolished 17 nuisance taxes. In particular, we:<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished excise duty on petroleum<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reduced special petroleum tax rate from 17.5% to 15%.<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished the 1% Special Import Levy<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished the 17.5% VAT\/NHIL on domestic airline tickets<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished the 17.5% VAT\/NHIL on financial services<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished the 17.5% VAT\/NHIL on selected imported medicines, that are not produced locally<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished the 5% VAT\/NHIL on Real Estate sales<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abolished import duty on the importation of spare parts.<\/p>\n
o\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reduced National Electrification Scheme Levy from 5% to 3% and<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition to these import duties were reduced by about 50% in April 2019\u201d, he continued.<\/p>\n
Today, Ghana is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and thanks to initiatives like 1D1F and planting for food and jobs, we have shifted from a focus on taxation to a focus on production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has rejected claims by the opposition NDC that the Akufo-Addo Government is, contrary to its promise while in opposition, is increasing electricity tariffs rather than reducing them. The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced a 5.6 per cent increase in electricity tariffs on Monday 30th September, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":4145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12],"tags":[833,2279,2543],"class_list":["post-4144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-nana-akufo-add0","tag-vice-president-of-the-republic"],"yoast_head":"\n