The Senior Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Kofi Bentil, has launched a scathing attack on the government’s management of the Energy Sector Levy (Amendment) Bill, 2025.
According to Bentil, the government’s approach to the fuel levy issue demonstrates a disconnect from the real problems facing ordinary Ghanaians.
Speaking on Joy News, Bentil expressed his frustration with the government’s explanations for the fuel levy. “You heard Felix spend 15 minutes explaining these things — It’s your job, nobody cares about it. When you travel to places where leaders work, you don’t know where they bought the gas from or whether they are using crude oil or nuclear energy — your lights stay on. Please sit up, do your work.”
Bentil emphasized that the government should focus on solving the problem rather than getting bogged down in technical explanations.
“Consistently, they come at us with this and that and then when the problem comes, they come and explain all kinds of things that we don’t care about. If you’re competent, solve the problem,” he stated.
According to Bentil, the issue of Ghana’s energy sector is a bipartisan problem that requires both the current and past administrations to take responsibility. “It is a bi-partisan problem,” he noted.
The Energy Sector Levy (Amendment) Bill, 2025, introduces a GHS1 fuel levy expected to generate GHS5.7 billion annually.
The government has pledged to ring-fence all revenue from the levy for critical energy-related expenditures, including debt repayment and fuel procurement. However, critics argue that the levy is an added burden on already overtaxed citizens and reflects poor public finance management.