A member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo has suggested to the government to increase the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) levy to support the Free SHS programme.
The levy is a 2.5% charge on goods and services.
“Some of the radical things that I am looking for is for us to increase the GETFund tax so that we can guarantee that every single child in this country will have free education right up to the university level,” Addo said on Asaase 99.5 Accra’s news analysis show, The Forum, on Saturday (9 July 2022).
“We keep making it look like Ghanaians don’t like paying taxes. I think it is not true,” he said. “What the Ghanaian is looking for is for you to be able to show him what the taxes are being used for, that is the problem, the lack of confidence in the fact that when we pay our taxes, our taxes will not be used for the right purpose.”
“So, we have an opportunity. There is no way other countries will come and develop Ghana for us. We have to develop it ourselves. If we are going to take the austerity measures now and tell ourselves that we are going to put in certain tax measures, whether you like it or not we are going to implement it,” Addo said.
He said the Free SHS programme will help transform the country’s economy by building adequate human resources.
“I am always for that programme [Free SHS] because if we want to change the face of this country, we need to have free education,” he said.
About GETFund
The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) is a public trust set up by an Act of Parliament in the year 2000. Its core mandate is to provide funding to supplement government effort for the provision of educational infrastructure and facilities within the public sector from the pre-tertiary to the tertiary level.
Fred Dzakpata
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