Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor, has described as “needless” government’s imposition of sanitation levy capped in its petroleum taxes.
According to him, government must eliminate the “draconian levies” it has placed as part of its “calculation for the final [pump] pricing”. Questioning the “sense” in the sanitation levy in fuel pricing, Mr Dafeamekpor explained that the minority’s call for the review and scrapping of petroleum taxes is justified.
“We are telling them that imposition of things like sanitation levy is totally needless. Because there’s a very salient doctrine in environmental law and that is the polluter must pay. When I generate my levies, I should be able to pay for it. You don’t tax everybody whether or not they generate debris; a sanitation levy. So, if you take off such a levy for instance, it is capable of bring succour to our people”.
Mr Nelson Rockson Dafeamekpor
The South Dayi legislator disclosed that, government hasn’t so far been transparent on the monies accrued from petroleum taxes and only declared its intention to suspend the taxes for “populist reasons”.
“They have not been able to implement it [for] three weeks [now], it’s still in abeyance [and] they don’t have the authority and have to come to parliament… The minority is not simply saying that justify the reason why you want to suspend the imposition of these two levies, we are actually asking them to reduce it and eliminate some of them”.
Mr Nelson Rockson Dafeamekpor
Appraisal of fiscal space
On his part, Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso, Dr Stephen Amoah, noted that government has to carefully go through certain processes in order to implement some measures on its taxes.
Mr Amoah explained that if government wants to change some of these things, there is a need for deliberation and not make “arbitrary decisions”. Mr Amoah advised the need to analyse “our fiscal space” and let Ghanaians know the true situation on the ground.
“One cannot just wake up and say reduce taxes [and] increase taxes without doing proper appraisal of the systems and the fiscal space, whether the impact of it will rather be good or bad. If we want Ghana to be better off, it is time we sat down and honestly [engage] experts who understand this thing…”
Dr Stephen Amoah
The Nhyiaeso legislator remarked that the country has “debt rocketing” as a result of productivity being “almost on hold”. As such, government is forced to borrow to “perform obligation” and statutory requirements.
“Because of this, we have to be very careful not to jeopardize this country entirely. It is [an] extremely tedious position we find ourselves. We need to do an analysis of your fiscal space, that is, debt to GDP, revenue generation target… against your obligation”.
Dr Stephen Amoah
Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has demanded the immediate review and scrapping of taxes on petroleum products. When done, the minority believes it will cushion Ghanaians who have had to endure about 43% increment in prices of petroleum products for this year.
Speaking on behalf of the minority, spokesperson on Mines and Energy, John Jinapor, accused government of deepening the problems of Ghanaians by increasing taxes on petroleum products.
Mr Jinapor revealed that the excuse from the government that a litre of fuel is selling at almost Ghc7.0 cedis as a result of prices on the world market is untenable.
“Is it not these same people who promised the people of Ghana prior to assuming office that they will abolish the energy sector levies describing them as obnoxious and further promising to move the country from taxation to production?”
Mr John Jinapor
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