Ato Forson’s Betting Tax removal and memories of Kwesi Botchwey’s cigarette and gari olonka prices

By Anny OSABUTEY 

On Tuesday, March 11, 2025, the first budget of the new government was outdoored to Ghanaians.

Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, MP for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam in the Central Region, went to Parliament with the fine details sitting comfortably in a minimalist hand-made leather briefcase, a product designed by Tonyi Senayah’s Horseman Shoes company, an example of a brilliant Ghanaian excellence.

For those who are not economic experts, budget details are often judged on the comfort they create for the ‘ordinary’ Ghanaian. Not so much the highfaluting economic figures reserved for technocrats.

But for first time since the first budget of the former NPP administration was read in 2017, it appears the ordinary Ghanaian or the STREETS, as it has become known, got interested in the details of the budget.

Among other things, two key items were of concern to the STREETS; thus, the removal of the Betting Tax and the E-Levy.  In the run-up to the 2024 elections, the then sitting government and now government made the removal of the two taxes key parts of their campaign promises.

Those taxes were suffocating the STREETS, and they would be removed – the then opposition promised. The party cruised to a resounding victory.

The STREETS played a major role in the NDC’s victory, and the STREETS expected nothing but for that promise to be kept. Days before the budget reading, some independent experts argued for the non-removal of these taxes. They raised concern as to how the government was going to make up with any shortfall.

Apart from that, there was the argument from the Ghanaian Moral Code Society (it is my own creation), who said the Betting Tax should not only be kept but increased, to deter people with high testosterones for gambling.

But I think they are not right, especially when no scientific study has been carried out to validate their claim. Their opposition is what I refer to as sanctimonious religious chants with no spine to hold it.

The removal of the two taxes were non-negotiable, so far as the STREET(S) was concerned. And true to their own word, the Finance Minister announced it has been shot down from the budget. He read that part twice, just to ensure the STREETS got him right.

Popular Ghanaian content creator, Code Mickey took to his platforms and relayed the message back to the STREETS. In his attention grabbing and witty presentation on the HIGHWAY, the brilliant Code Mickey praised the President for keeping his word to the streets.

He, however, cautioned for the taxes not to remain in the books for long – it should not go beyond two weeks. He said the STREETS would look forward to great ‘betting odds’ with excitement.

The excitement the budget generated on the STREETS reminded me of the Dr. Kwesi Botchwey era in the PNDC days, between the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Then the man tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the health of the country’s economy, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey – now deceased, appeared on our television screens in the evening around 7pm or so. That was the era when black and white television was a luxury and reserved for the financially sound in the country.

Dr. Botchwey, then bespectacled and bearded, appeared alone. He would keep a straight face to the cameras and with his document before him, read out the fine economic details of the then PNDC Government.

Even as teenagers whose source of watching television came from the generosity of a seaman who made it available on his compound for the community, our appreciation of the budget was informed by the conversation we heard from people on the announced prices of milk, sugar, car batteries, gari olonka and cigarettes.

There were other items, too. Even for the uneducated at the time, traders in these items made sure they were aware of the prices announced in the budget.

Back in Tema Newtown where I partly lived, smoking of cigarettes was popular among most seamen. These were people who had travelled abroad, interacted with ‘Whiteman’ and living his lifestyle at home. Cigarettes between the fingers were always a flex, or so I thought.

I remember one of our neighbours who lived in a three-bedroom apartment with his family. Apart from his apartment, the rest were compound houses. The toilet in the area was pay as you go, and one was given a newspaper to wipe away the remanets of the undigested waste from the bowel. The tap was also pay as you fetch.

But his was different. He was a chain smoker and brilliant lotto analyst. In those days, a single newspaper – then the Peoples Daily Graphic, now GRAPHIC – had a competitor in the Lotto papers. And his newspapers were shared by those fortunate to be in his circle of friends. He was always surrendered by fellow lotto enthusiasts and he would sit and lecture them on winning numbers.

He was a mystery man to us, partly because he would appear on television during the live lotto draws. We saw him as a treasure. His unannounced lotto lectures were often accompanied by a stick of cigarette stashed on the left side of the mouth. He was very protective of the cigarette.

Though he drove a white Mazda in those days and may have paid attention to the prices on car parts including batteries, it was the cigarette price that was important to him. I remember him berating one of his children for mistakenly throwing a pack of cigarettes into a big basin with water. He was aghast.

I did not understand his rage, to be honest, but I remember telling my mother about the incident. She asked me if I touched it, and I said no. The truth is, I thought smoking cigarette was reserved for the rich. How can a financially impotent teenager even dream of holding the dead end of the product, let alone the entire stick.

For us as teenager, we had zero interest in Dr. Kwesi Botchwey’s budget. Ours was to sit and watch Akan drama of Obra or Osofo Dadzie, so any budget reading was a turnoff. Same as Talking Point and the News, at the time.

But almost forty years down the line, in a democracy occupied by the two dominant parties, budget details have become my cup of tea. And like the STREETS, I was also interested in what the details were to my finances.

The post Ato Forson’s Betting Tax removal and memories of Kwesi Botchwey’s cigarette and gari olonka prices appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

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