The government must keep the Covid-19 levy that was introduced as part of the fight against the virus, a senior lecturer at the Economics Department of the University of Ghana, Dr Adu Owusu Sarkodie, has said.
He suggested that the government channels the funds generated from the Covid levy to healthcare financing.
“Keep the covid levy and channel it to healthcare financing, don’t scrap it, keep it,” he said during the Sustainable Health Financing Dialogue on achieving improved maternal health outcome organized by Media General in Partnership with STAR-Ghana on Thursday, February 1.
He added that sources of funds for healthcare financing should be sustainable.
He asked the government to turn to the extractive sector as a way of generating money to finance healthcare delivery in Ghana.
Sources of funds for healthcare financing should be sustainable, equitable – Adu Sakodie
“My advice to our government and all stakeholders is that the contracts in the extractive is not the best. The contracts have been signed in such a way that the benefits go to the foreign companies that have been given the contract,” he said.
He added that “the Source of funds for healthcare should be sustainable, improve quality, and provide equitable healthcare, those sources should be predictable, we should be able to budget for it and offer transparency and accountability.
It is recalled that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo received flak for keeping the Covid-19 Levy despite calls on him to abolish it.
The special levy known as the COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy on the supply of goods and services and imports was meant to raise revenue to support the fight against Covid.
Although President Akufo-Addo in his address to the nation on Sunday, May 28 described the 1% tax as unpopular, he stated that the government would continue to charge the levy.
He said, “The COVID Health Recovery Levy that was introduced to help fill some of the expenditure holes might not be the most popular tax, but I entreat all of you to bear with us.”
“Let me make it clear that COVID expenditures, essentially unplanned, have been subject, at my instigation, to audit by the Auditor-General, and are going through parliamentary processes. We all deserve to be reassured that the crisis was not used as a cover for corrupt practices”, the President added.
This attracted criticisms from North Tongu Member of Parliament Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
Mr Ablakwa said “Ghanaians expected President Akufo-Addo to have announced the scrapping of COVID 19 even as he lifted all restrictions.
“Ghanaians also expected the awful E-levy to be abolished since his government has opted for an IMF bailout. President Akufo-Addo must be sincere and sensitive to the plight of the suffering Ghanaians.”