Flagbearer and vice president of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has pledged to invest heavily in the private sector to ensure economic growth.
Mahamudu Bawumia said the Akufo-Addo-led administration has burdened the private sector through excessive taxes. Because of the high demand for infrastructure, the government is looking for more avenues to tax or borrow. That he said is a burden to the ordinary Ghanaian.
“So, when I talk about the government, how it’d reduce the cost of living and create space as far as the fiscal is concerned, is very key.
“One of the things that we have done over the years is that the size of government has grown. Some people say it has grown too large but it has grown and the government seems to want to do so much in the economic space, build all the roads, build all the hospitals and everything.
“In so doing, there is a burden that comes on the government and government is therefore in the process looking to either increase taxes or increase borrowing to do that”
Dr Bawumia, the above precedents call for a change in direction, spearheaded by a focus on the private sector. To this end, he said he would re-align government expenditure to push part of it towards private sector development.
“One of the key things I want to bring about is essentially to realign the government expenditure and bring a part of it towards the private sector”.
According to Dr Bawumia, an increase in government expenditure means more money is needed. He said that would always push the government to tax the citizens more or borrow to fund the expenses thus leaving workers unattended to.
“The more government expenditure we increase, ultimately we have to tax more or borrow more and when we have to do that, we create less space to increase the condition of service of workers”, he noted.
