If Ghanaians supported E-Levy, we would have fixed more roads – Roads Minister

Roads and Highways Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Attah says the country’s precarious financial situation has affected some of his outfit’s infrastructure projects.

According to him, the situation has made it difficult for the Ministry to repair the many deplorable roads.

He made these comments when he took his turn before Parliament’s Government Assurances Committee.

Addressing the committee members on Tuesday, Mr Amoako-Atta lamented the failure of the controversial E-levy to rake in the expected revenue.

Fresh data from the Finance Ministry showed a significant shortfall in revenue from the tax.

The data indicated that government raked in less than seven per cent of its e-levy target.

The E-Levy was initially expected to rake in ¢6.9 billion by the end of 2022 of which it was revised significantly to ¢4.5 billion.

Information from the Ministry’s provisional data span in the first and second quarters of 2022 reported that it has collected ¢92.7 million.

Comparing the amount raised (¢93.7 million) to the initial target (6.9 billion) indicate that a percentage of 6.4 per cent has been raked.

On the back of these, the Minister further argued that had Ghanaians supported the tax measure, more roads will be fixed across the country.

“One of the key areas of the E-Levy was the road sector. So if it had been, for instance, supported it could have helped,” he said.

When pressed by members of the committee if he had received all his allocations in the 2022 budget, the Roads and Highways Minister admitted that the Finance Ministry had not released all the amounts due the Ministry.

He was quick however to add that the issue of unreleased budgetary allocation is not peculiar to this government only.

Ghana is currently going through a tough phase when it comes to finances.

Following this, the government has been at the doors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save the economy from a meltdown.