The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mark Badu Aboagye, says the upcoming Mid-Year Budget Review should be able to sustain and improve upon the investor confidence Ghana’s going to the IMF has generated.

According to him, while Ghana has started to fare better on the international market following the government’s IMF announcement, it was important for the Finance Ministry to announce policies that will improve the local market as well.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, he stressed that improving the local market should not be an excuse for the government to introduce more crippling taxes.

“Well I think after the announcement of the IMF coming in, there has been some level of confidence in the Ghanaian economy, and this has reflected in the performance of our bonds in the international market. But we also have to look at the local factor, what can we do?

“So we’re expecting that the mid-year review we will rather also inspire more confidence in the economy, and that will come when there are proper policies that are being outlined to solve most of the challenges that we are having.

“In fact, if you look at the difficulties that we are having, we all know the problems, for instance inflation. And of course it comes back to the structure of our economy which we’ve spoken about over and over again.

“So what is the Minister going to tell us in terms of that and how are these issues going to be resolved? We are not expecting of course another round of taxes coming up,” he said.

He noted that it is clear the government would not be able to meet targets it had set at the beginning of the year, hence it should focus its attention on policies that will better the economy rather than justifying the economic downturn.

“And if you look at the targets that the Minister set actually from where I sit, I don’t think that we’ll be able to achieve any of the targets that was set. Inflation of 8% is not achievable looking at the current inflation rate of 29.8%. If you look at the GDP of 5.3 he’s not going to achieve it.

“Now they have to face the reality, it’s not the time for us to compare the performance of NPP to NDC, comparing 2021 to 2016, those days are gone. He should be precise and concise on how they’re doing to turn and fast track the recovery process, that will be what we’ll be looking out for,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mark Badu Aboagye says his Chamber still stands by their position that the E-levy needs to be reviewed downwards to 1%.

According to him, the current 1.5% is too high, and would only encourage businesses and individuals to find ways to evade paying the tax.