The Member of Parliament for Akyem Oda, Alexander Akwasi Acquah, has questioned the rationale behind the government’s decision to settle power sector debts through taxation, despite claims that there was no power crisis in the country.
According to the former Deputy Health Minister, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) consistently denied the existence of dumsor.
Therefore, the justification for burdening Ghanaians with taxes to clear related debts is unacceptable.
He argued that if there was truly no such crisis, then taxing citizens to pay off energy debts amounts to economic deception and political dishonesty.
“Is this not the same government that claimed there was no dumsor?” he asked.
Mr. Acquah stated that he does not expect the government to make citizens suffer the consequences of something they claimed never existed.
“They made us believe that they had implemented measures, so what we were experiencing was not dumsor. Now, Ghanaians are being taxed for the same dumsor that they [NDC] claimed did not exist,” the MP said.
He went on to dismiss the assertion that the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government contributed to the legacy debt accumulating in the energy sector.
He, however, indicated that the NPP managed the sector prudently, which is why they did not resort to taxation to sustain it, unlike the approach now adopted by the current government under John Dramani Mahama.
His commentary relates to new tax on fuel where government introduced GHC1 on petroleum products.
