The New Patriotic Party (NPP) ‘Mighty’ Minority in Parliament has pledged to provide truthful information to Ghanaians on the affairs of the country and strictly hold the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) accountable to the people.
It entreated Ghanaians to be careful of the governing party and President John Dramani Mahama who is virtually behaving like a crybaby, endlessly lamenting everywhere about the so-called ‘criminally managed’ economy.
The NDC government, the Minority observed, is holding a National Economic Dialogue, to whitewash the unfounded and baseless claims of the mismanagement of the economy under the erstwhile NPP administration.
This, the Minority further believes, is part of unholy moves by the NDC, ostensibly to buy time to cover for its incompetence in managing the economy and to establish the basis for increasing taxes and introducing new ones in the 2025 Budget Statement, even as the Mahama administration is promising to scrap the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy), COVID-Levy, Betting Tax among others. Presenting the “The True State of the Nation,” following President Mahama’s presentation of the “False State of the Nation” to Parliament last Thursday, 27th February 2025, the Minority quizzed, “does it make sense to scrap E-levy and betting tax, and replace them with new taxes on the mining, telecommunication, the financial sector and real estate industries, which will all be passed on to customers?
Making the presentation at news conference in Parliament on Monday on behalf of the minority caucus, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, immediate past Minister for Finance, alerted Ghanaians to “wait for the deception of the NDC government when they present the 2025 budget,” envisaging it will be taxes galore!
“This is how they intend to tax Ghanaians to collect their target of GH¢200 billion in tax revenues this year,” he projected.
Deceptive NDC
Dr. Amin Adam who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Karaga in the Northern Region, cautioned Ghanaians to beware of the deceptive governing NDC.
“This government accused us of overtaxing the people of Ghana because by the end of 2024, the NPP administration collected GH¢152.9 billion which is 17% tax to GDP ratio taking it from President Mahama’s 13% in 2016.
“How do you then turn around to expect to collect GH¢200 billion in a broken economy? Dr. Amin Adam quizzed.
Resistance to tax hikes
The Minority group served notice it will resist any attempt by the Mahama administration to increase taxes for the Ghanaian people.
“We the Mighty Minority will join the people of Ghana to resist any attempt to smuggle in new taxes or increase existing taxes. We owe it a duty to hold the government accountable for their promises to the people of Ghana.
“As a country, we have come a long way, working closely with our key stakeholders including the IMF, World Bank, the African Development Bank, bilateral partners, domestic and international investors; and more importantly, the Ghanaian people who have sacrificed so much to see us get this far.
“We can assure you all that our partners and the people of Ghana are not happy because the President’s SONA has reversed the gains made especially towards building confidence with investors,” Dr. Amin Adam reiterated.
Untruth & scaremongering
The NPP Minority slammed President Mahama for painting the picture of a country that has been economically mismanaged when in fact, “we have turned the corner from what we have all come to know was the worst economic crisis in Ghana following an unprecedented global crisis between 2020 and 2022.”
Dr. Amin Adam stressed that even when the previous Mahama government was confronted with a domestic challenge in the form of dumsor, it simply ran to the IMF to save the economy.
“What the President has done is like putting a gun on one’s head and pulling the trigger.
Investors had felt the hope of a resurging economy, and were looking forward to the new things the President was bringing to consolidate the gains.
“The President has effectively told them to go away because the economy is in crisis, contrary to the evidence.
“The cost-of-living crisis is a global problem, and we understand, but that cannot be used to degrade the entire economy in the face of overwhelming data pointing to the contrary.
“And in addressing the cost-of-living crisis, the President himself went to a meeting with leaders of the labour union to assure them he was on top of his job, only to offer them 10% increase in the base pay, when his predecessor without this drama offered them 23% from January to June and 25% from July to December 2024 in an economy that is ‘criminally mismanaged’ in the words of President Mahama,” Dr. Amin Adam pointed out.
Usual blame game
The former Finance Minister said it should not be surprising to anybody about the blame game by President Mahama as it is not new.
According to Dr. Amin Adam, President blamed late Professor John Evans Atta Mills, in his last state of the nation address delivered on January 5, 2017, for poor performance of their first four years during which he served as Vice President.
“Mr. Speaker, we inherited (in 2013) an economy that was running a high deficit, with increasing inflation and interest rates. It was also characterized by a rapidly depreciating currency.
“This unstable macro environment created an unfavourable investment environment for both indigenous and foreign capital. Our forum at Senchi was an attempt to forge a consensus for a home-grown fiscal consolidation programme.
“The Senchi outcome eventually became the basis for the IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme we are implementing,” President Mahama stated in 2013.
Same old story
President Mahama, the Minority noted, is back with another round of blame game and another National Economic Dialogue and with the same “da da noaa.”
Mass dismissals
Dr. Amin Adam decried that the President who promised to create jobs, is rather firing those who have jobs.
“It is now a notorious fact that, to create vacancies for the purpose of employing NDC youth, the Mahama administration has sacked thousands of young Ghanaians who had been properly employed by the previous administration.
“The termination of the jobs of young Ghanaians which has become synonymous with President Mahama ‘Terminator 1’ is a sign of what is yet to come. Sacking people from employment and replacing them later with others does not amount to job creation,” the Minority caucus bemoaned.
Looming power crisis
The minority is worried that the country may be plunged into another power crisis like it experienced under the four years of the previous Mahama administration.
“We are alarmed at the risk of these power challenges reversing the economic turn-around in Ghana evidenced by the resurgent economic growth achieved last year.
“The dangers to economic growth are very visible for us to see:
a. there is no reliable power supply,
b. investors are being turned away by a government that is baselessly painting a bad picture of its own economy; and
c. contractors are not being paid despite the GH¢68 billion approved by Parliament for the government to spend in the first quarter of the year, and notwithstanding the significant amount of revenue at their disposal to meet these spending requirements, including for example, the over GHS5 billion buffer left for them, GH¢8.7 billion collected by GRA for January 2025, and about GH¢67 billion borrowed in less than 2 months.”
