The Minority Caucus in Parliament has expressed doubts over the One District One Factory (1D1F) flagship initiative introduced by President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party administration achieving its objectives since its implementation in 2017.
The Ranking Member of the Trade, Industry and Tourism Committee of Parliament, Yusif Sulemana described the initiative as failing to realize its purpose as it was announced by the government at the start of its implementation.
According to the Bole-Bamboi Member of Parliament in the Savannah Region, the government has failed to quantify the benefits it has accrued from the One District One Factory initiative despite several tax waivers it has given to companies.
“Four to five years down the line after the implementation of the 1D1F policy, the objectives to which it was introduced had not been met. It is supposed to ensure that we improve upon our foreign reserves. It’s supposed to ensure that we have created jobs, which have not been achieved. It’s to ensure that we have factories in all the districts of this country that have also not been met”.
Yusif Sulemana
Mr Sulemana further argued that the tax waiver regime instituted by the New Patriotic Party administration under the One District One Factory initiative has been abused.
He thus argued that the government must take immediate steps to move away from the tax waiver regime in which it grants tax exemptions some companies and rather enact a ‘Tax Exemption Act.
“When a blind man wants to throw a stone at you, he knows what his feet are on. So what we are saying to them is that the companies they have shortlisted and sent to us, many Ghanaians are complaining that they have also applied, yet because there are no criteria or selection, they have been left out. Before the enactment of this tax exemption act, we had realized that we could not even quantify the kind of benefits that we were getting as a result of granting those tax exemptions, so there was a need to put that tax in place”.
Yusif Sulemana
Minority Refutes Claims Of Undermining Government’s Industrialization Drive
Moreover, the Bole Bamboi Member of Parliament, Yussif Sulemana emphasized that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Minority in Parliament are not against the government’s industrialization drive through the One District One Factory, but are rather concerned about the tax exemptions that have not inured to the benefit of the state.
According to the Ranking Member of the Trade, Industry and Tourism Committee of Parliament, there’s currently a GH¢5.7 billion tax exemption request in Parliament, where the Finance Committee of Parliament is considering giving tax exception to some selected companies.
Mr Sulemana further alleged that it reliably informed that the Ministry of Finance has about GH¢7 billion in tax requests in the form of tax exemptions that the ministry is preparing to present to Parliament for consideration and approval.
According to him, when the two are merged, it’s about GH¢12.5 billion, which is the amount of money that the government, especially the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trades, are willing to give to their ‘friends’ and ‘cronies’ in the name of One District One Factory.
He emphasized that such steps by the government would not in any way benefit the country as evidence in the past has shown so.
The One District One Factory (1D1F) is a policy introduced by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration to establish new factories in every district in the country to create employment opportunities and drive industrialization in the country.
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