Pressure group, OccupyGhana, has expressed the need for President Akufo-Addo to pay income taxes like Ghanaians in the country.

According to the group, the President must lead by example as it has noted with considerable concern, the Finance Minister’s announcements on restructuring portfolio investments. It revealed that while the IMF support depends on the proposed ‘haircuts,’ they are extremely painful to the many Ghanaians who have participated in these investments.

OccupyGhana noted that under government’s watch, Ghana has become “broke under circumstances that were avoidable and are inexcusable and unpardonable”. Owing to this, it made some recommendation that government should act upon.

“Let the President pay income taxes too. We should remove the tax exemption granted to the President under article 68(5) of the Constitution. While the actual savings from this might not be much, it is hugely significant and relevantly symbolic. When he pays his taxes, then he can demand that the rest of us pay taxes too.”
OccupyGhana

OccupyGhana equally called for the reduction in number of Government appointees by at least fifty percent. This, it explained, may be achieved by consolidating several ministries and slashing the number of political appointees both ministerial and otherwise, such as all deputies and the like, and entrusting public servant-technocrats with the responsibility of supporting substantive heads.

The pressure group stated that this will send a powerful message in these “tough and painful” times that the government is serious about its commitment to do better while requesting sacrifices from the general public.

OccupyGhana’s recommendation to government on economy

Additionally, OccupyGhana noted that it is time to rationalize the “so-called article 71 benefits” as Ghana needs to end the three-decade-old “grand conspiracy” among the political class that milks Ghana under what it described as the false argument that article 71 authorizes ex-gratia payments. It further underscored the need to eradicate the multiple claims of ex-gratia and the multiple claims over different administrative and government terms which do not make sense and are difficult to sustain.

“We must also immediately end the false scheme by which successive governments deliberately delay the setting up of the emoluments committee till the end of their terms, so that salaries and emoluments are agreed upon and calculated literally at the ‘midnight’ of the outgoing government, considered and adopted in secrecy to precious little debate, and then applied retrospectively. Ghanaians only get to find out the huge pay-outs to the executive and legislators after-the-fact.”
OccupyGhana

Demanding that the committees are established at the start of each government, OccupyGhana explained that this will help Ghanaians know what and how much the political actors are entitled to when they assume office.

Subsequently, the group called for the revision of all tax exemptions, especially those granted to incomes and gains from portfolio investments. The Government, it highlighted, must as a matter of urgency, amend section 7(1)(p) to (v) of the Income Tax Act, 2015 (Act 896) to remove all or some of the exemptions on incomes and gains from portfolio investments.

These are not normal times, OccupyGhana emphasized, and as such, proposed the need for imposing a specific, time-bound withholding income tax regime on such earnings and also for government to consider re-granting the exemptions when the economy has recovered.

“Intensify and institutionalize GRA’s invigilation activities. In addition, the legal sanctions for under-reporting and tax evasion must be drastically applied… Explain the source of funding of the proposed Financial Stability Fund (FSF). Extreme transparency of the proposed programme and its implementation is required. If the Government is broke and requires an IMF bailout, where will the monies for the FSF come from?”
OccupyGhana

Similarly, OccupyGhana noted that government has to address the Galamsey menace as a matter of urgency, as the country’s natural resources are plundered, and ecosystem destroyed.