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Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana and Vice Presidential candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2016 Election says the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is clueless in turning around the fortunes of the Ghanaian. He says it is more heartbreaking that the current economic mess Ghana finds herself in was created by the NDC but it has not shown any sign of salvaging the country from the economic doldrums. �The 2015 budget demonstrates one thing for sure. The NDC government has created a fiscal mess after 6 years in office but has no clue how to deal with it�, Dr. Bawumia made the comments when he met the United Kingdom Branch of the Young Executives Forum in Milton Keynes on Saturday. Dr. Bawumia, who thrilled the audience with his remarkable insight on the Ghanaian economy, used the opportunity to do an elaborate review on the 2015 Budget presented by the Finance Minister, Seth Tekper last Wednesday. �The government�s focus is on raising revenue to hide the fiscal indiscipline. However, it is clearly more of an expenditure mismanagement problem. The budget does not address expenditure review and re-composition and measures to ensure fiscal discipline, but rather focuses on the revenue side (raising more taxes), clearly being insensitive to the population and taxing them to hide inefficiencies. There is a saying that �if all you have is a hammer everything begins to look like a nail!� This is so appropriate in the case of this NDC Government�, he said. Infamous Petroleum Tax Dr. Bawumia used the infamous Petroleum Tax to explain how the government was totally lost in its handling of the current economic crisis. �This Special Tax on petroleum products is bound to also increase the already high cost of doing business in the country. At the time when many businesses are having to pay for diesel to run generators as a result of load-shedding, they are being asked to pay more taxes on fuel. This would increase the cost of production. We strongly believe that that this tax measure is unwarranted. If the deep seated waste and reported corruption in payroll administration is corrected swiftly, enough savings could accrue to the budget and this tax measure could have been avoided. If the leakages are not plugged, then no amount of tax increases would solve the problem.�, he said. Dr. Bawumia also touched on the taxes imposed on the financial and real estate sectors as examples to show how the government had totally gotten it wrong in their approach to correcting the mess they have created. VAT on fee-based financial services Brouhaha �In the 2014 budget the Government pushed through against sound arguments to the contrary, a VAT on fee-based financial services. The confusion surrounding its implementation resulted in the withdrawal of the policy measure. In their desperation to raise tax revenues, the 2015 budget states that this VAT on fee-based financial services will be implemented. This is a bad policy for the economy. Ghana�s financial system is underdeveloped with only some 20% of the population having a Bank account. What the government should rather be doing is providing some incentives for financial inclusion. The introduction of VAT on fee-based financial services would only serve to drive people away from the banking system with the attendant reduction in financial savings. It will also increase the cost of doing business for the business community.�, he said. Real Estate Touching on the Real Estate sector, Dr. Bawumia noted �Some statistics on the property market in Ghana would be instructive in placing this VAT on real estate transactions in context. First, Ghana currently has the highest mortgage to income ratio (at 605%) in the world. In terms of House Price to Income ratio, Ghana is the 10th highest in the world. In terms of housing affordability, Ghana ranks as the least affordable property market in the world[1]. Given these facts, it is clear that the real estate industry in Ghana needs help. Government should rather be trying to encourage the development of the mortgage market through tax incentives for real estate developers and better land administration. A 5% VAT on real estate transactions is the wrong way to go. � Use of Borrowed Cash He further questioned the government on the massive accumulation of debt in the last six years and what those monies had been used for, as the government as yet, had not been able to account for the money. Dr. Bawumia challenged the government to provide a list of all projects it had undertaken with the various loans secured in the spirit of transparency. �In the 2015 budget the Minister of Finance mentioned a number of signature projects that have been financed by the borrowing. �It is worthy to note that all these signature projects sum up to some $3.5 billion out of the increase in total debt by the equivalent, at the time of borrowing, of some $27 billion, and oil revenues. In fact, the oil revenues alone could have financed 60% of these projects. So where is the rest of the money? For the sake of transparency, the Government should list all the projects financed by domestic and external borrowing and the amounts involved since 2009 to enable proper accounting for the increase in the stock of debt and oil receipts.�, he said.