The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is accusing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of masterminding the controversial 17.5% Special Petroleum Tax that was approved by Parliament on Wednesday.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Friday, the Deputy Secretary General of the TUC, Dr Yaw Baah said, “We find it extremely surprising that government will allow the IMF to dictate to them and say impose VAT on petroleum products.”
He said we “…have a situation, where we are struggling and you have a government impose VAT on petroleum products when we are already crying. VAT is regressive and so progressive countries don’t really duel so much on it. That is why we should not allow the IMF to dictate to us.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”K7JSUESk7anMMyuaPK3IKg4FubTiJB4d”]Dr Baah also described the “decision to move from Senchi to IMF” as “very unfortunate.”
“You are running a country and you have stakeholders and you brought all of us together and we all agreed that this is the path that we want to take. Even if you want to do U-turn you consult, you don’t just go ahead and say you are going to IMF it doesn’t matter what anyone will say,” he fumed.
The IMF in a release endorsed the nation’s 2015 budget saying it contained the plan to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit and properly manage government’s finances.
But Dr Baah said they are not surprised that the IMF has endorsed the budget saying “of course IMF will be happy to see such a budget…because the budget reflects the IMF tradition.”
He however chastised government for seeking assistance from the IMF despite revenues being raked from the oil sector.
He said, “What we need now in Ghana is not more money because we have got more money. If you compare the money we have now to ten years or two years ago the economy is growing, we are having more money. The problem is how to manage the money that we have that is why we should not allow the IMF to dictate to us.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana