Akufo-Addo gov’t has been squanderers of public purse – Ricketts-Hagan

Hon. Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Cape Coast South, Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan has slammed the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government for failing to protect the public purse since coming into office.

Speaking to TV3 over the weekend, the former Deputy Minister of Finance said instead of protecting the public purse, the Akufo-Addo government has been looting every fund under their watch.

According to him, it is based on this attitude of government that the Minority in the last five months had opposed the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy).

“There are actually intellectual or academic reasons why we think the e-levy was a bad one. One of them is obviously pensions.

“We have talked about savings, we have talked about money on people’s wallet that government just want to take it away and pensions became one of them.

“The other side also, as I mentioned is the common man’s thinking that this government has not really been protector of the public purse but rather they have been squandering the public purse.

“All these things were problematic put all together, became the reason why the nation was rejecting the e-levy,” Hon. Ricketts-Hagan said on the Key Points programme.

The controversial E-Levy has been passed into law with the Finance Ministry confident the Ghana Revenue Authority will begin implementation in early May.