{"id":736814,"date":"2022-01-05T23:39:21","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T23:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/05\/claims-of-supporting-local-industries-unacceptable-ndc\/"},"modified":"2022-01-05T23:39:21","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T23:39:21","slug":"claims-of-supporting-local-industries-unacceptable-ndc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/05\/claims-of-supporting-local-industries-unacceptable-ndc\/","title":{"rendered":"Claims of supporting local industries unacceptable\u2014NDC"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Accra, Jan 5. GNA \u2013 The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Gvernment\u2019s \u201cclaim of reviewing\u201d the benchmark value policy to support local industries is a \u2018smokescreen\u2019to overburden citizens.<\/p>\n
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According to the Party, the Government was in a better position to help local industries and boost local production by reducing the cost of doing business through the stabilisation of the Cedi, lowering utility tariffs, and reducing taxes instead of reversing the policy.<\/div>\n
It said the removal of benchmark value on some 43 imported items was likely to harm the same industries that Government said it was protecting, because most of the industries relied on the imported commodities that did not have substitutes locally as input for local production.<\/div>\n
\u201cEven for the few affected products that are produced locally, we do not currently have the local capacity to produce to meet national demands,\u201d said Mr. Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communications Officer of the Party at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday.<\/div>\n
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 \u201cinsensitivity\u201d of the Government to the plight of Ghanaians.<\/div>\n
\u201cThis 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,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
Mr Gyamfi claimed the Government was being forced to abandon its vision of reducing smuggling and making Ghana\u2019s port the most competitive in the sub-region through the benchmark policy due to \u201cself-inflicted economic malaise\u201d caused by \u201ccorruption,\u201d \u201cmismanagement,\u201d and \u201creckless election-driven spending.\u201d<\/div>\n
Mr. Gyamfi, said Government was, therefore, on a mission of shoring up its revenue \u201cto create an artificial picture of a sound economy in order to convince the investor community on more and more borrowing\u201d.<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
\u201cIn 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.<\/div>\n
\u201cWithout any argument, this government has been the luckiest and most resourced government in Ghana\u2019s history with a total resource envelope of over GHS460 billion accruing to them in the last five years,\u201d he stated.<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
The intervention was to curb smuggling, which had increased because of higher import duty charges at the port.<\/div>\n
On January 4, 2022, however, the Government, to the displeasure of traders and importers, announced the reversal of the policy to protect local industries.<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), however, said the timing was wrong, would increase prices of goods and overburden the citizens.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Accra, Jan 5. GNA \u2013 The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Gvernment\u2019s \u201cclaim of reviewing\u201d the benchmark value policy to support local industries is a \u2018smokescreen\u2019to overburden citizens. According to the Party, the Government was in a better position to help local industries and boost local production by reducing the cost of doing business through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":736815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[276,277,278,279,280],"class_list":["post-736814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-claims","tag-industries","tag-local","tag-supporting","tag-unacceptablendc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}