"Abolish VAT"

The Evening News carries a call on President Kufuor's government to roll-back many of the recent tariff increases and scrap the Value Added Tax (VAT).

Professor George Ayittey, a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), who made the call, said high taxes do not only encourage bribery, corruption and evasion but also act as a disincentive to production.

He told a press conference in Accra yesterday of the task ahead of the new government, which he called "the G-R Agenda", and said high interest rates in the country and tax rate, are also an indication that government expenditure is out of control, hence the ever increasing need to raise taxes or borrow from the banking system.

This, he said could be rolled back and the budget balanced at the same time, citing the expenditures on ACDR's and revolutionary committees.

He noted that production has lagged in the country because of high taxes, high interest rates and government hostility towards private business and erratic talk from high government officials and suggested that the new government must focus on increasing production in the country as a way to economic recovery.

The key to economic growth, Prof Ayittey said was investment both domestic and foreign.