Afenyo-Markin, Minority Leader
The Minority Caucus in Parliament has rejected government’s decision to suspend the implementation of the Energy Sector Levies (Amendment) Act, 2025, popularly known as the Dumsor Levy indefinitely.
The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), in a statement signed by the Commissioner-General, Mr. Anthony Kwasi Sarpong on June 14, announced the postponement of the Dumsor Levy which was originally scheduled to take effect on Monday, June 16, 2025.
But in a statement issued on Sunday, June 15, the Minority Caucus condemned the decision to postpone the implementation of the levy just days before its scheduled commencement, describing it as evidence of the government’s “chaotic and inconsistent approach to economic governance.”
“This eleventh-hour postponement of the Energy Sector Shortfall and Debt Repayment Levy (ESSDRL) on petroleum products, originally scheduled to take effect on 16th June 2025, epitomises this Government’s chaotic and fundamentally inconsistent approach to economic governance” the statement read.
The Minority Caucus stated that, government’s justification, citing global crude oil price volatility due to the Israel-Iran conflict, was both hypocritical and dishonest.
“We consider it thoroughly reprehensible and profoundly hypocritical that the very Government which ruthlessly castigated the previous New Patriotic Party administration under His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for attributing Ghana’s economic challenges to external factors – namely the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict – has now brazenly reversed course to cite the ongoing Middle Eastern crisis as justification for crude oil price volatility, thereby necessitating this postponement”.
“This represents a stark contradiction, particularly given that President Akufo-Addo’s administration successfully implemented comprehensive economic recovery programmes, maintained Ghana’s democratic institutions, and delivered transformative infrastructure projects even whilst confronting these same global challenges” the statement added.
According to the Minority, the Energy Sector Levy which seek to tax Ghanaians Ghc1 on a liter of petroleum products will worsen the cost-of-living of Ghanaians and are calling for it immediate repeal.
“This Energy Sector Levy (Dumsor Levy), which seeks to impose additional fiscal burdens upon already beleaguered Ghanaians through petroleum product taxation, ought never to have been contemplated. At a juncture when Ghanaians are contending with harsh cost-of-living pressures, the introduction of supplementary fuel levies – which inevitably generate cascading effects upon transportation costs, food prices, and all essential commodities—represents not merely insensitive policymaking but economically counterproductive governance.
“In keeping with our earlier opposition to the passage of the bill, the Minority categorically repudiates this postponement as wholly inadequate and demands the complete reversal of this misguided policy direction. We emphatically call upon the Government to immediately table a repeal bill under certificate of urgency to comprehensively abolish the Energy Sector Levies (Amendment) Act, 2025” the Minority said.
They further warned against any attempt by the government to blame a worsening power crisis on the levy’s suspension, pointing instead to operational inefficiencies at ECG, poor metering systems, and failure to sustain the Loss Reduction Programme introduced under the previous administration.
“We categorically reject the notion that Ghana’s energy woes are due to the absence of this levy. They are the product of poor leadership and mismanagement,” the statement added.
In conclusion, the Minority Caucus reminded the government of its electoral promise to ease economic burdens, not to impose new ones. A vow was made to resist “any regressive fiscal policies that worsen the plight of citizens.”