Gabby Otchere-Darko, a prominent New Patriotic Party (NPP) member, laments the fact that the government was compelled to seek financial assistance from the IMF (IMF).
He claimed that no government in this scenario could have avoided asking the Fund for assistance, particularly when its efforts to raise money are met with vehement hostility from both Parliament and the general public.
According to his judgment, this includes the Minority’s fierce resistance to the contentious E-Levy.
What transpires when it takes you six months to pass a taxation policy?Because this tax would have significantly impacted a large number of people, it is simple for the opposition to rail against it and then fuel public opposition. However, this is the only option.
“I believe that those are the things we need to concentrate on when you have an opposition party that thinks that nothing is more important than political capitalization of situations and can go out to the public and say that “yes, praise us because we stopped the government from getting its way in raising revenue to solve the situation and the problems facing the average Ghanaian.”
In an interview with Newfile, Mr. Otchere-Darko claimed that, given the delay in passing the e-levy law and other initiatives, the Akufo-Addo government had no other choice than to turn to the IMF.
“Government saw a problem and approached Parliament. We don’t have a Parliament where you could say that the majority would rule and the minority would have no say; our Parliament does not operate in this manner.
“If you remember, the Minority Leader was actually bragging [and] taking credit for frustrating government’s attempt to raise money, delaying that by six months. I am not too sure how any government in Ghana’s situation would have rescued that because you have a major way of raising revenue which has been frustrated for six months,” he lamented on Saturday, July 2.
He is not overly pessimistic about the government approaching the IMF, but he thinks more domestic policies could have been implemented to improve the economy’s fortunes.
The private attorney continued by blaming Parliament for the current state of the nation.
There were challenges; yes, government came with its policies to see how to address those challenges and those policies were frustrated by the very Parliament that we have.
“Yes, we are in a difficulty but if you are government and don’t intend to go to the IMF but you are put in a situation where your avenues for raising revenue are being closed – whether through parliamentary action or by public rejection – then you have to tackle it,” Gabby Otchere-Darko stressed.
