Following the abolishment of tolls on public roads and bridges, a member of the NDC’s Upper East Regional Communication Team Abdallah Salifu has reckoned that the 2022 budget will end up rendering most people in Ghana jobless.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 during the presentation of the 2022 budget statement pronounced that the government will cease collection of levies from all toll booths across the country. Reacting to the move on the Daybreak Upper East show on A1 Radio, Mr. Salifu said the budget does not give relief to Ghanaians as it only compounds their woes.
He observed that scrapping off the road tolls will not only render toll managers jobless but will also deprive hawkers their source of livelihood.
“One thing about these toll booths is they provide employment for the hawkers. Go to Pwulugu; those selling the onions, the yellow melon, the watermelon and all manner of fruits, all of those people are going to be unemployed. That’s the reality; all of them are going to become unemployed,” he noted.
He spoke out that government’s claim that it is creating jobs for the citizenry is a mirage as its policies are making Ghanaians jobless. Mr. Salifu pointed out that government should have increased road toll as a way of generating more revenue and creating more employment opportunities rather than slapping a tax of 1.75 percent on Electronic Transactions. He explained that it would have given Ghanaians a sigh of relief if the government had imposed a 1 percent tax on E-Transactions.
“ You turn round and say you are going to create jobs meanwhile you are making so many people unemployed. This 1.75 tax they are introducing; even if you wanted to introduce and make it 1 percent and increase the number of toll booths you would rather be creating more jobs because if you have more toll booths it means you have more hawkers around the area”. He emphasized.
However, Deputy Upper East Regional Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party, Johnson Ayine, in response to Mr. Salifu on the same show, downplayed the assertion the budget will create unemployment by urging Ghanaians to keep faith with the budget.
He said the citizens should not take the NDC serious and thus encouraged them to fully embrace the budget since the latter has the penchant of sounding unnecessary alarm bells to the former.
Source/www.a1radioonline.com/101.1mHz/Elijah Beyeni Yenibey//Ghana
