Ahead of the Mid-year Budget review to be read in Parliament today by the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta, the Executive Secretary for the Importers and Exporters Ghana (IEAG) is wondering what has become of the government’s manifesto promise to redefine Ghana’s economy and move it from one that taxation based to a highly industrialized on that is production based.
He made raised these concerns when he spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show today, Monday, July 25, 2022.
Mr. Asaki Awingobit explained that the government had failed to live up to its promises in that regard.
“If you look at 2016, the government came with a lot of promises to the business community and all Ghanaians. One of the key areas that made Ghanaians build confidence in them was that they were going to move from taxation to production. They said they were going to create an economy where businesses would flourish. It was also that there was not going to be vindictiveness of businesses. As we speak, I can tell you authoritatively that, nothing has been done.”
“Those were palpable lies; they deceived us,” he stressed.
Mr. Asaki Awingobit explained that the 1 percent special levy that was abolished was brought back as the financial sector cleanup levy. the Executive Secretary for the IEAG, bewildered about the development, explained that as importers, they were not, or could not have been blamed for the mess in the financial sector and so they could not understand why such taxes should be imposed on them.
“2018, 2019 up to date, the government went back to Parliament and told Parliament to 1 percent tax for them [government] to collect from us importers. Anytime we import into this country, we are paying duty plus 1 percent to the state to help them clean the financial institutions. Point is, were we the ones who asked the government to do that?”
As such, Mr. Asaki Awingobit hoped that these issues would be adequately addressed by the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta.
Meanwhile, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has called on the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta to take the opportunity the mid-year budget review presents to remove some of the taxes on the petroleum price buildup.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
