The National Democratic Congress (NDC) claims that the government’s “claim of evaluating” the benchmark value strategy in order to boost local industry is a “smokescreen” designed to overburden residents.
Instead of reversing policy, the Party believes the government would be better able to assist local enterprises and stimulate local output by cutting the cost of doing business by stabilizing the Cedi, lowering utilities rates, and lowering taxes. The elimination of benchmark values on 43 imported products, it argued, was likely to affect the exact businesses that the government claimed to be defending, because most of the industries relied on imported commodities for which there were no local equivalents as inputs for local production.
- Akatsi South: Loyal NDC activist reshapes 4kilometer road
- NPP holds annual regional conference in Yendi
“Even for the few affected products that are produced locally, we do not currently have the local capacity to produce to meet national demands,” said Mr. Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communications Officer of the Party at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday.
He said the decision to reverse the policy at a time when commodity prices had increased with depreciating currency, rise in freight charges, and projected increase in fuel prices, showed the “insensitivity” of the Government to the plight of Ghanaians.
“This will ultimately increase the cost of doing business in the country, negatively affect the turnover of businesses and trade volumes and lead to the collapse of many businesses and jobs,” he said.
Mr Gyamfi claimed the Government was being forced to abandon its vision of reducing smuggling and making Ghana’s port the most competitive in the sub-region through the benchmark policy due to “self-inflicted economic malaise” caused by “corruption,” “mismanagement,” and “reckless election-driven spending.”
Mr. Gyamfi, said Government was, therefore, on a mission of shoring up its revenue “to create an artificial picture of a sound economy in order to convince the investor community on more and more borrowing”.
He said it was not tenable to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification for the reversal of the benchmark value because the Government had external funding from institutions such as IMF, World Bank and exceeded its revenue in 2020, which surpassed revenue generated in 2019.
“In the year 2019 before the advent of COVID-19, total tax revenue stood at GHC43 billion while total tax revenue for 2020 stood at GHC45.3 billion, thereby exceeding tax revenue target by GHC2.5 billion.
“Without any argument, this government has been the luckiest and most resourced government in Ghana’s history with a total resource envelope of over GHS460 billion accruing to them in the last five years,” he stated.
The Government, in April 2019, introduced a benchmark value discount of 30 percent on vehicles and 50 percent on goods at the port to make the port competitive within the sub-region
The intervention was to curb smuggling, which had increased because of higher import duty charges at the port.
On January 4, 2022, however, the Government, to the displeasure of traders and importers, announced the reversal of the policy to protect local industries.
The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) welcomed the decision to reverse the policy, which it said would help local industries to grow and become competitive.
The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), however, said the timing was wrong, would increase prices of goods and overburden the citizens.
