ACCRA — As the Ghanaian capital had the worst air quality in the world at some points last month, with pollution almost twice as bad as Delhi’s, you might expect residents to welcome a plan to reduce the country’s carbon emissions. Yet a policy dubbed ‘the emissions levy’ has been met with growing concern.

Ghana’s government rolled out its carbon tax – the third country in Africa to do so after South Africa and Mauritius – just days before Accra’s air pollution was deemed ‘hazardous’, in part due to the Harmattan season, when dry northeasterly winds carry dust particles from the Sahara desert over West Africa.

The new tax will see Ghanaian residents pay between GHS75 ($6) and GHS300 ($24) annually for vehicles they own, while industries including construction, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas and electricity will pay GHS100 ($8) per tonne of emissions monthly.

The levy, which the government says aims to lower water and air pollution, comes as Ghana works to meet objectives set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of the $3bn bailout of the country agreed last year.

Ghana turned to the IMF in July 2022 after severe economic and financial challenges that saw it default on domestic and foreign debts. President Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration has consistently blamed the economic crisis on external shocks from Covid-19 and Russia’s war on Ukraine, though critics maintain that these events only exposed the mismanagement and reckless spending of the government.

One objective stipulated by the IMF was that ministers introduce new revenue generation measures. The carbon tax is one of five new tax interventions since the IMF loans were announced, and there have been at least a further five amendments to existing taxes.

Critics say the emissions levy will raise the cost of basic market produce as businesses look to offset costs, and will be an extra financial burden in already tough economic times, which the IMF support is supposed to alleviate.

There are ongoing talks over protests against the tax, particularly since the Ghana Private Road Transport Union threatened to hike transport fares by over 20% because of it. Many people believe it is being selectively applied, as it fails to account for people who trade in charcoal or even scrap dealers who burn metals.

‘Is anyone measuring emissions in Ghana?’

Edward Opoku, an automobile industry insider, told openDemocracy that if the government was serious about reducing emissions, it would work to ensure electric vehicles (EVs) were more attainable.

Most Ghanaians in the densest urban areas commute via trotro, privately owned minibuses that travel fixed routes, many of which are old and poorly maintained. The minority that own vehicles have imported used cars – which are less likely to be environmentally friendly – because they cannot afford newer vehicles.

“The adoption of EVs is largely private sector-led, and it looks like government efforts are more retrogressive to the adoption of the EVs than helpful,” Opoku said.

The price of an EV in Ghana is about 30% higher than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price due to the various import taxes, a 2022 study commissioned by Ghana’s Energy Commission found.

Just over 17,000 electric cars were brought into Ghana between 2017 and 2021, the same study reported, despite the country importing more than 100,000 cars annually.

Opoku also pointed out that the government introduced a fairer carbon tax in 2018, which targeted only people who owned vehicles with engine capacities of 3.0 litres and above. That tax was scrapped the following year, after protests from a small coalition of car dealers.

Since 2021, any Ghanaian buying petrol or diesel has paid an indirect sanitation and pollution levy. Some critics believe this means these people already contribute their fair share to protecting the environment and the emissions levy amounts to double taxation.

Nii Amponsah, a trotro driver in Accra, called the blanket levy for vehicles unreasonable – suggesting the government will not even monitor whether it has any impact.

“Is anyone measuring emissions in Ghana?” he asked. “They are just using this tax to make money for themselves.”

The General Transport, Petroleum, and Chemical Workers Union expects organised labour to rally against the levy, just as it did a planned tax on electricity purchases, which was suspended last month after widespread outcry.

“You can’t just generalise it and say that everybody should be paying a tax on emissions, so for me, it is a nuisance tax,” the union’s president, Bernard Owusu, told openDemocracy.

John Awuni, the president of the Food and Beverages Association, expects businesses to pass the added costs associated with the tax onto customers, eroding the already-waning purchasing power of everyday Ghanaians.

“The Electricity Company of Ghana will be charged carbon emissions. Thermal plants will be charged for carbon emissions. They are not going to pay it,” he said. “The entire burden of these taxes will be transferred to the final consumer, which is you and I.”

Awuni’s fears were confirmed by petty goods trader Doris Obeng, who said she will raise her prices to reduce the impact the tax has on her wallet.

“If the transport people increase prices, we can’t do anything. But if I need to put GHS3 on my wares to get my profit, I will increase it.”

Pressure to appease the IMF?

Many people in Ghana believe the country’s emissions figures, which are relatively low compared to much of the world, do not justify the new tax.

“For Ghana, if you look at the amount of C02 we emit globally, it is quite insignificant. It is less than 1%. It doesn’t make sense that we should tax our citizens,” said Emmanuel Turkson, an officer at environmental conservation group A Rocha Ghana.

Ghana emitted 59.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2021, a report from the country’s Environmental Protection Agency found. The biggest emitters that year were China, at 12 billion tonnes, the US, at 5 billion tonnes, and India at 2.6 billion tonnes.

Countries in the Global North have been responsible for 92% of the excess global carbon emissions since 1850, according to a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in September 2020.

Turkson also said the tax is hypocritical, given the Akufo-Addo administration’s poor record on the environment. Illegal mining has ravaged forests and water bodies in Ghana, with the government doing little to stem this.

A Rocha and other groups have also spent the past year fighting a new law that permits mining in forest reserves.

This highlights a dissonance in the government’s approach to protecting the environment, Turkson said. “We say we are doing tree planting [projects], and then we go back and offer our forests to be cut down.”

Neither finance minister-designate Mohammed Amin Adam nor information minister-designate Fatimantu Abubakar responded to openDemocracy’s request for comment.