The Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), has called on farmers and Ghanaians as a whole to embrace the government’s proposed electronic levy (e-levy) which was announced in the 2022 budget statement by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, last month.
According to Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Akufo-Addo administration was working assiduously to raise money to support farmers in the country, and that the e-levy would help in that regard.
The Finance Minister who introduced the levy in the 2022 budget told Parliament a huge chunk of the proceeds will support entrepreneurship.
The Agric Minister said the National Democratic Congress’ entrenched position on the levy is very worrying. Dr. Afriyie Akoto made the assertion when he visited one of the government’s built warehouses at Gambaga in the North East Region on his first-day visit to the region as part of his 13-day tour of the northern sector.
“There are two markets in Ghana; the subsidized fertilizer market, which is the planting for foods and jobs, and the commercial or open market for anyone who wants to buy. These two markets have existed side by side, but because the subsidized fertilizer market was so big, there was very little for the open market. Now with the price increases on the open market, we are also facing problems with revenue collection in Ghana and everywhere else because international trades have also shrunk.” We get most of our government revenue from international trade – imports and exports. That is why it’s become necessary for this government to look for alternative sources of revenue to close the gap, hence the introduction of the electronic levy.
The opposition (NDC) is making the electronic levy a big issue. What they don’t realize is that it’s affecting other areas. So if we are to remove the levy, where are we going to find the money to give subsidies to farmers? There would be nothing,” he said. The warehouse contained thousands of tons of harvested rice for safekeeping. Prior to the visit to the warehouse, Dr. Afriyie Akoto held a durbar with stakeholders and farmers in the agriculture sector in the region, where he encouraged them to support the government’s policies in the sector. These, he said, included Fertilizer Subsidy, Planting For Food and Jobs (PFJ) among others aimed at improving farming activities in the region. He explained that the problem has come about because of the global shortage of fertilizer, adding that this has caused increases in the price of fertilizer. He said, regrettably Ghana does not produce fertilizer, and added that the government has subsidized fertilizer for farmers by 50%.This facility, he said, started when the government began its PFJ programmed.
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