Bussiness
‘Big men’ in Ghana weren’t paying tolls – Kofi Kapito
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), Mr Kofi Kapito has revealed that ‘big men’ were not paying road tolls.
He said the state lost money through the failure of these personalities to pay tolls.
“Big men don’t pay tolls in Ghana so why wont they lose money,” he said on the New Day show on TV3 Friday May 12.
He wondered why the roads were bad although the tolls were being collected.
“how can you construct toll booth and the road near the booth is nonsense? He asked.
Also contributing on the same show, a private legal practitioner Mr Kwame Jantuah asked the government to account for the road tolls that were collected prior to suspending the collection.
He said the tolls were meant to refurbish the roads. However, these roads have not been in the best of shape.
This, he said, raises questions about what the tolls were used for.
“ideally, tolls are supposed to be used to maintain the roads but the state of the motorway has been the same,” he said.
“The road tolls that were collected, what have they been used for ?” He questioned.
Road toll collections were suspended after the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta announced in the budget statement an end to the collection of the tolls.
During the presentation of the 2022 budget statement to Parliament on Wednesday November 17, he said this takes effect immediately the Budget is approved.
“A comprehensive review will be conducted after every fifth-year taking into consideration, other factors besides inflation including, improvement in quality of service delivery and privatisation of some of the services, where feasible. Mr. Speaker, our roads need fixing. Our roads are being fixed. It is true that more roads have been fixed and are being fixed over the last five years than any relative period in the entire history of our nation. We even want to do a lot more and this budget will cater for this.
“That is why for decades, Government after Government imposed and maintained tolls on some public roads to raise funds for road construction and maintenance. This is the situation in many countries. However, over the years, the tolling points have become unhealthy market centres, led to heavy traffic on our roads, lengthened travel time from one place to another, and impacted negatively on productivity.
“The congestion generated at the tolling points, besides creating these inconveniences, also leads to pollution in and around those vicinities. To address these challenges, Government has abolished all tolls on public roads and bridges. This takes effect immediately the Budget is approved (after appropriation or now?). The toll collection personnel will be reassigned. The expected impact on productivity and reduced environmental pollution will more than off-set the revenue forgone by removing the tolls.”
Source: 3news.com
Bussiness
Ghana’s GDP shows economy is fast recovering despite DDEP – Finance Ministry
Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) indicates a rapid economic recovery despite global challenges and ongoing debt restructuring, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
The Ministry in a statement today indicated that latest data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), cumulative economic growth for the second quarter (Q2) of 2024 reached 6.9%, a notable increase from the 4.7% recorded in the first quarter of 2024.
The MoF statement further noted that, “The economy’s robust recovery is in response to the macroeconomic stability and growth interventions that government is pursuing under our IMF-supported Post Covid-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG).”
According to them, the overall real GDP growth for the first half of 2024 rebounded strongly, with year-on-year GDP growth averaging 5.8% for the period, significantly higher than the 2.9% recorded in the same period in 2023.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
Read full statement below
Bussiness
Facebook, Youtube, online trading companies must be taxed – Deputy Finance Minister
The Deputy Finance Minister Dr Alex Ampaabeng, has proposed that online trading companies should be taxed to bolster the economy.
He noted that these companies, both local and international, generate significant revenue from their Ghanaian clients, which underscores the necessity for taxation.
In an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV’s The Point of View, Dr Ampaabeng pointed out various potential revenue sources for Ghana, including online businesses and content creation companies.
He questioned why other national companies operating in Ghana are taxed, but social media platforms like Youtube and Facebook, which run numerous advertisements, are not included in the Ghanaian tax system.
According to him, these social media companies earn profits from the advertisements they display, and online trading companies also generate income from the sale of their products and services.
He mentioned online trading companies such as Jiji, Jumia, and Tonaton, which he believes surpass all physical marketplaces in Ghana in size.
According to him, “I can’t think of a country which has not gotten a digital service tax system of some sort, so Ghana is long overdue. Just to make an example so that people will appreciate where I’m coming from. Go to Youtube and play a video, within one or two minutes, you are going to watch about two, or three adverts.”
“What it tells you is that Facebook or Youtube is making profits right here in Ghana. Go to your Facebook account, and you are going to see a number of adverts on your right, left. What it is telling you is that Facebook is making profits right here in Ghana and not being taxed. Meanwhile, there are companies operating in Ghana, for jurisdiction reasons, of course, that are being taxed,” he said.
The Deputy Minister added that “So then, it comes to the question of the application of our tax laws. Revenues generated in Ghana are subject to taxes. We have Facebook, TikTok and all those players, these are digital platform owners.”
He stressed, “Then we have the digital or market players, here we are talking about individuals who are using the digital platforms. We have Jiji, Jumia, Tonaton, these combined, are bigger than all physical marketplaces in Ghana. And it tells you the volume of transactions, that are going on there.”
He expressed his hope that individuals earning online profits from Ghanaian residents would be taxed.
“There are conversations ongoing, I wouldn’t want to pre-empt anything, maybe in the future, it might not be anytime soon, what I would like to see, is a Ghana where people who are earning all forms of profits in the country are subject to taxes. People who are trading online to Ghanaian residents, people who are generating revenue from Ghana are allowed to pay taxes,” he noted.
Additionally, he proposed a collaboration with the government to curb cybercrime by registering and verifying these online trading companies.
“We can have a system where the government engages these operators, so individuals will submit their Ghana Card and are registered and verified,”he concluded.
Source: Citinewsroom.com
