Member of Parliament for Akyem Swedru in the Eastern Region, Kennedy Nyarko Osei, has prayed Ghanaians to help government pay the debt that has swallowed the country.
According to him, government is owing contractors in the country billions for works done over the years and there is the need to clear these debts that the country has been bedevilled.
He indicates that currently, the country does not generate enough revenue from the road fund to be able to offset such debt and therefore, it’s imperative that citizens come in to support government.
The Lawmaker acknowledged that paying taxes is one of the most difficult things to do but it has become imperative that the citizens of the country have to pay taxes to ensure that debt is defrayed.
“One of the difficult things everywhere in the world is paying of taxes. Nobody likes to pay taxes irrespective of how much it’s so it’s understandable when people raise their voices or resist anytime government decides to introduce new taxes that put extra burdens on the people but we must understand also that we cannot develop this country and make it a beautiful place for us all if we don’t raise enough revenues to meet our public.”
Adding that “You and I can help clear this over 8 billion road arrears to contractors by contributing something small anytime we decide to send Momo to help all of us to get these mountain debts cleared and also have enough to complete all ongoing road projects across the country. Your little contributions and that of mine are the ones that are going to do the trick of fixing all our bad roads in the country within the next 3 years”.
Read His Full Statement Here:
Government roads arrears to contractors stands at a little over 8 billion cedis. About 40% – 45% of this 8 billion is just interest on delayed payments by the government. What it means is that in an actual sense government is paying over 3.2 – 3.5 billion which we shouldn’t have paid but we have no choice than to pay this because government doesn’t have the resources to pay all IPC’s that are raised by the contractors.
What it means is that if government wants to end this continuous polling of arrears and its attended interest on delay in payments then we have to find a way as a country to clear all these arrears within the shortest possible time to save the country this over 3.2 billion we have been paying to contractors for not physical works but rather interest on delay payments.
Currently, we don’t generate enough revenues from both the road fund and other sources that go to address the issues in our road sector. This has become necessary for us as a country to find a way to deal with these mountain road arrears in order to say the country of paying about 40 – 45% interest on delay payments whereas we could have used these monies to fix more of our bad roads but because we don’t as a country generate enough revenues to fix the roads we have no option than to continue incurring these avoidable payments.
We can all help to save this situation and get enough revenues to fix all the ongoing road projects and the bad ones as well if we all agree to support in doing so. One of the difficult things everywhere in the world is paying taxes. Nobody likes to pay taxes irrespective of how much it’s so it’s understandable when people raise their voices or resist anytime government decides to introduce new taxes that put extra burdens on the people but we must understand also that we cannot develop this country and make it a beautiful place for us all if we don’t raise enough revenues to meet our public expenditures.
You and I can help clear this over 8 billion road arrears to contractors by contributing something small anytime we decide to send Momo to help all of us to get these mountain debts cleared and also have enough to complete all ongoing road projects across the country. Your little contributions and that of mine are the ones that are going to do the trick of fixing all our bad roads in the country within the next 3 years.