The Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority, Professor Akwasi Osei, has called for a portion of the excise tax on alcohol and tobacco to be channelled into the mental health fund.
He said the government could do that by either increasing the excise tax on alcohol and tobacco and channelling the difference to resource the fund or maintaining the tax and paying a portion of it into the mental health fund.
“If you increase the tax on alcohol and tobacco, I don’t think people will complain because, after all, people are not even supposed to consume them. So if they cannot afford the cost of alcohol due to tax, then they shouldn’t drink it. We encourage the government to approach the funding of the Mental Health Fund that way,” he explained.
Prof. Osei, who made the call in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra on March 3, 2022, explained that tobacco and alcohol consumption was a precursor for mental health problems, and, therefore, taking part of the taxes on them or increasing the tax on them to treat the consequences of such behaviour was in order.
He was speaking on 10 years of the Mental Health Act, 2012 (Act 842) and the delay in implementing the mental health levy that would provide funds for the Mental Health Fund.
Background
Last Tuesday marked a decade of the enactment of Ghana’s Mental Health Act, 2012 (Act 846), and in an article published in the Daily Graphic to mark the day, Prof. Osei and Kwaku Brobbey, among others, highlighted three things that were left to be achieved after the enactment of the law — the establishment of the Mental Health Board, the passage of the legislative instrument and the establishment of the mental health levy.
He said when the levy was established, it could go a long way to support the rehabilitation of people who were dependent on alcohol and other drugs and that would enable them to come back to help with the development of the country.
On measures the authority had taken to get the levy established, he said it was expected to be established by the Ministry of Finance, and that over the years the MHA had engaged both the previous and the present governments on it.
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