The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) says they do not expect the government to increase taxes in Friday’s budget presentation.

GUTA Welfare Officer, Benjamin Yeboah said the Association expects the government to introduce measures to widen the tax net instead of introducing new taxes as the government presents the 2021 budget to Parliament.

The budget which will be read by Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu is expected to highlight steps the government is taking to bring back the economy to life after a year of the hard-hitting impact of Covid-19.

But GUTA wants a widening of the tax net to include even those in the informal sector.

“We don’t expect any increment in any taxes but we expect that the Finance Ministry will use this…that you’ve gotten to widen the tax net, we’ve spoken about this widening of the tax net for quiet too long.”

GUTA also wants the government to deal with the lending rate in the country to enable businesses to have access to low-interest rate loans.

Meanwhile, CEO of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Seth Twum Akwaboah expects assurances from the budget on stabilisation of the economic environment for business to be competitive even beyond Ghana.

“In the budget, we want to have a strong indication of economic stability in the next couple of quarters. We know that in the first quarter have been reasonably well managed, the inflation and the depreciation of the cedi that we normally experience hasn’t been that bad. “

He said it will be great if there can have assurances through the budget that the macroeconomic environment will be stable and predictable.

The CEO of AGI also wants more support for businesses to survive in this Era of covid-19.

“Our study shows that 80 per cent of all the companies we interviewed were deeply affected by the Covid situation and therefore going into this year, we know that the effect will still be tough somehow because it’s still not over yet and therefore we need to still be clear on how we support businesses to get back on track,” he said.

He added: “We would expect that the budget, will be a clear plan for supporting Ghanaian businesses.”