Minority in Parliament has said that the Christmas season will be bitter and painful for Ghanaians this year.

According to the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, his comment is centered on the level of hardship the 2022 budget is expected to unleash onto the populace.

“This Christmas ladies and gentlemen would go down as the most bitter and painful for Ghanaians as they will struggle to put food on the table for the families due to the draconian, physical, and tax policies that have been introduced by the Akufo-Addo, Bawumia government,” he said.

In the view of the NDC MPs, the government failed to spell out concrete plans to reduce the public debt indicating that Ghana’s debt would reach approximately 355 billion cedis by the end of this year.  

He, however, observed that the minority will reject the special tax on mobile money as well as the 15 per cent increase in all governments’ fees and charges.

“It is sad to note that the Bawumia led Economic Management team has sort to impose more suffering, pain on the ordinary Ghanaian by punishing them with additional devastating taxes and other fiscal measures in the budget,” he added.

Meanwhile General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia has argued that the introduction of 1.75 % tax on Mobile Money transactions is a regressive move.

“We don’t know whether they are talking about austerity budget or budget they are talking about a budget that is supposed to inject more expenditure because on the one hand they are saying that oh its austerity we have to inject tighten our belts and so on and we don’t see any belt-tightening on the cost of running this country because the issue is excess expenditure over revenues,” he lamented.