The 2015 budget which was read yesterday by the Finance Minister appears not to go down well for Members of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA).
An executive member of GUTA, Siaw Ampadu, told Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem on Thursday that they expected government to reduce the interest rate at the ports to make work easier for them.
The Finance Minister on Wednesday November 19, 2014 presented the 2015 budget statement in Parliament, but did not mentioning anything about a reduction in port taxes.
The budget, which is under the theme: "Transformational Agenda; securing the bright medium prospect of the economy" focused on plans to move Ghana’s economy into an industrial one among other things.
Seth Terkper also announced the introduction of new taxes on petroleum prices and imports, but removed taxes on the importation of smartphones into the country.
However, Mr. Ampadu believes that government has excluded traders from the 2015 budget statement noting that “Government always wants to leave us out of important decisions. They always enjoy increasing levies but do not reduce them for us.
“We want the interest rate to reduce but listening to the budget, government did not even mention anything like that, which to me shows that we are not in their plans,” he said.
