Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta is expected to deliver the mid-year budget review today in parliament on the expenses the country has made so far, six months into the 2020 fiscal year budget.

The minister is expected to touch on issues concerning the progress made by the country on the last budget drafted for the year 2020.

But ahead of the mid-year budget reading, some traders who spoke to talksafrica.com noted that they are not expecting anything new aside from the normal empty promises the government has made so far.

Kwame Nketia is a spare parts dealer and has stated that the cedi rate against the dollar is really affecting business especially the prices of the items they sell.

“The cedi keeps going up and it doesn’t even reduce, things are very expensive because on the international market we get them at high prices so we can’t sell them at a low price when the items come down here, we also need to make a profit,” he said.

Responding to a question asked on the impact of COVID-19 on the spare parts business, Kwame Nketia noted that the pandemic has really affected business especially during the lockdown and the shutting down of airports and borders.

“Coronavirus has really slowed down business and if I should tell you the loses I have made just because of this pandemic, you will be surprised, it has messed up everything for me, people hardly buy products these days, they all want it on credit but that is also not possible, sometimes my most trusted customers even want to buy it on credit because they don’t have the money readily available, and I can’t also just give it to them because I need money to take care of other expenses at home, the pandemic has really affected everything” he further stated.

Meanwhile, the vice president in one of his speeches in 2016 noted that government has introduced a tax waiver for spare part dealers at the ports which will go a long way to reduce the burden of paying huge sums of money in clearing goods at the port.

But Kwame Nketia said, “that is actually not the case when you go to the port, we are still paying the huge sums of money to clear our goods, the operations are the only thing that is moved online and nothing again, we still the huge sums of money every time we go to clear our goods”.

By Amos Ekow Coffie  |  talksafrica.com