3news.com | 7/17/2018

Chief Operation Officer of Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson has tasked Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta to take hard decisions in stabilizing the Ghanaian economy. Speaking on TV3 New Day ahead of the midyear budget review, Joe Jackson said government ought to take tough and bold decisions regardless of the backlash it may come with. “I do not see any way out, we need to face our reality and take hard decisions. I am expecting hard decisions… We seem to think there is a free lunch somewhere and that we can have everything without paying anything.” According to Joe Jackson, government is broke, and they must admit it and work towards stabilizing the economy. He noted that the challenge with government’s plans to introduce new taxes has to do with the way government communicates its plans. The Dalex Finance COO said government has failed to properly coordinate and implement the projects and policies outlined to generate revenue, and this has led to the poor performance of the economy. “Go back to the first State of the Nation Address in 2017; the President said we need to formalize the economy, but look at the National ID, we are still playing hide and seek. Ghana post has been done, but  it is a silo. It has no bearing on anything we do,” he stated. He noted that a lot of the projects implemented by government have been rendered meaningless because of the lack of proper integration. “Let us see some hard decisions, let us see an integrated plan to fix the economy. The problems have been diagnosed, but who is sitting there and integrating all those projects.” “When we talk about widening the tax, what does the TIN for instance do, what is the link between my TIN and what I do with my businesses?” Joe Jackson questioned. According to Joe Jackson, government’s disjointed initiatives as well as its approach to implementing them form part of problems hindering economic growth. “What I expect to happen is that there are a few projects that have been announced, bring them together and execute them.” Joe Jackson also expects the midyear budget review on Thursday, July 19, to contain some tough decisions and clearly cut out plans to stabilise the economy.

citinewsroom.com |7/17/2018

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dalex Finance, Kenneth Thompson, says Ghana is broke, and so government must take immediate steps to fix what he calls a “time bomb.”

“Ghana is broke, let’s face up to the reality and deal with it and stop this long English,” he said on The Point of View on Citi TV on Monday.

Mr. Thompson made the remark following reports about government’s intention to increase taxes.

Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, is expected in Parliament on Thursday to present government’s supplementary budget review.

Ahead of the review, there have been heated discussions in the country following a hint by a member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) of a possible increase in taxes and National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL).

The New Statesman newspaper reported that government may increase taxes from 17.5 percent to 21.5 percent.

Mr. Thompson, while speaking on The Point of View with Bernard Avle, urged government to broaden the tax base by getting more people to pay taxes instead of increasing the taxes.

“The challenge we have is how do we expand the tax net, it’s not about deepening it. All we keep on doing is trying to deepen it. Expanding tax net is getting more people to pay taxes, while the deepening means increasing it.”

“If you spend nearly 100 percent of your income on three line items you are broke. And when you are broke what do you do? You either increase income, reduce expenditure or you do both. But I’m not sure that the government is not serious at collecting more money. Not long ago I said I will pay property tax if they come to my house. Nobody has come to my house. Ghana is broke and that is the reality that we must all come to and find a way to get ourselves out of it,” the Dalex Finance CEO added.