Bawumia presents 103 achievements in 100 days

Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has highlighted 103 achievements under President Nana Akufo-Addo to mark the 100th day of his presidency.

Speaking at a Town Hall meeting on Monday at the new court complex in Accra organised by Joy FM, the vice president described his boss as “workaholic president” who has achieved a lot in his 100 days in office.

He said the Akufo-Addo government inherited a difficult economic situation “where the finances of government were in a very bad shape.”
However, he said the governing New Patriotic Party had made specific “promises to reduce taxes, restore nursing training allowance, one district, one factory, one village one dam and one million dollars for each constituency.”

“And at the same time we said that we were going to bring down the deficit and increase government revenue,” he said. “This was the background against which we went into the budget discussions for 2017. And thankfully by the grace of God, we’ve been able to accomplish what many people thought was impossible.”

According to him, the NPP’s first budget moved away from taxation to production, saying the focus was to give incentives to the private sector to bring down tax rate and encourage more production.

Highlighting the 103 achievements, the vice president said tax on spare parts has been abolished, “we reduced the national electrification levy from 5% to 3%, reduce the public lighting levy from 5% to 2%, reduce the special petroleum tax levy from 17.5% to 15%, we replaced the 17.5% VAT on small traders with a flat rate of 3% and we granted tax exceptions on stocks traded on the Ghana Stock Exchange or publicly held securities approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

“These were the major the tax change and they are indeed achievements of this government,” he said.

According to him, the 2017 budget “returned Ghana back onto the path of fiscal consolidation with a budget deficit target of 6.5% we ended 2016 with a budget deficit of close to 9% and we are going to bring it down this year to 6.6%.”
He said government also created fiscal space by capping earmarked funds of government agencies, describing it as a “remarkable reform” which successive government could not do.
“Government also created a lot of fiscal space by capping earmarked funds to 25% of government revenue and realigning expenditures to government priorities. This capping of the earmarked funds is a remarkable reform,” he said.

He said the capping created the need space for the government to spend because the budget was under stress from wages and salaries and other commitments.
“We began the process of re-profiling the public debt. As you know the public debt ended at GHC122 billion in 2016. And we as a matter of strategy began re-profiling our debt. This means we are replacing more expensive debt with less expensive debt. Short term debt with longer term debt, he said.

He said the last 100 days has seen a massive increase in the foreign exchange reserves
“From independence in 1957 to the end of 2016, Ghana’s total foreign reserve was $6 billion. In less than hundred days, we have increased those reserves from $6 billion to $8 billion”

He has such prudent management of the economy boost investor confidence in the economy.
Bawumia further said the exchange rate has stabilised and the cedi has appreciated in value.

“We want to make sure that we pursue sound policies to keep the cedi stable,” he said. “Inflation has come down from 15% when we came into office to 12.6% now.”

They are as follows:

Moving the Focus of Economic Policy from Taxation to Production, the government has:

-Abolished excise duty on petroleum.

-Abolished levies imposed on ‘kayayei’ by local authorities.

-Abolished levies imposed on religious institutions by local authorities.

-Abolished the 1% Special Import Levy.

-Abolished the 17.5% VAT/NHIL on domestic airline tickets.

-Abolished the 17.5% VAT/NHIL on financial services.

-Abolished the 17.5% VAT/NHIL on selected imported medicines, that are not produced locally.

-Abolished the 5% VAT/NHIL on Real Estate sales.

-Initiated the process to abolish duty on the importation of spare parts.

– Reduced National Electrification Scheme Levy from 5% to 3%.

-Reduced Public Lighting Levy from 5% to 2%.

-Reduced special petroleum tax rate from 17.5% to 15%.

Restoring Fiscal Discipline and Macro stability, government has:

Re-profiling Ghana’s public debt: USD2.25 billion cedi sovereign bonds, up to 15 year tenor, at 19.75%.

-Massive boost to our gross international reserves from $6 billion $8 billion.

-Reduced Inflation Rate from 15.4% to 12.8%.

-Allocated the cedi equivalent of $1million( GHs 4.1 million) to each constituency for economic development and poverty reduction.

-Restored confidence in the macro-economy by anchoring fiscal policy on the pillars of credibility, clarity and transparency.

-Replaced the 17.5 VAT/NHIL rate with a flat rate of 3 % for traders.

-Granted Capital Gains Tax Exemption on stocks traded on the Ghana Stock Exchange or publicly held securities approved by the SEC.

-The 2017 Budget returned Ghana back on to the path of fiscal consolidation with a budget deficit target of 6.5% of GDP.

-Government created fiscal space by capping of earmarked funds to 25% of government revenue and realigning expenditures to government priorities.

Restoring Fiscal Discipline and Macro stability, government has:

-Replaced the 17.5 VAT/NHIL rate with a flat rate of 3 % for traders.

-Granted Capital Gains Tax Exemption on stocks traded on the Ghana Stock Exchange or publicly held securities approved by the SEC.

-The 2017 Budget returned Ghana back on to the path of fiscal consolidation with a budget deficit target of 6.5% of GDP.

-Government created fiscal space by capping of earmarked funds to 25% of government revenue and realigning expenditures to government priorities.