PRESS RELEASE…
WEDNESDAY, 15TH DECEMBER, 2021
PATRIOTIC VOICES EXPLAIN WHY WE SHOULD ACCEPT E-LEVY AS A NATION
The Government of Ghana has, in the 2022 budget, tried to impose some sort of levy on the use of electronic transactions, but this has been vehemently opposed by a section of the populace, especially by the Minority in Parliament.
This tax, E-LEVY, they say, should never be contemplated at all but we of the Patriotic Voices think otherwise.
In our part of the world, we always draw our national budgets with two things in mind; taxes we can raise domestically AND grants from our Development Partners.
We make up the rest with loans, loans and loans. The Minority are saying that the country cannot go on borrowing. And we agree with them perfectly. The country cannot go on borrowing forever. The question then is, how do we raise money to make up the balance?
The answer, we believe, lies in the Presidents much touted GHANA BEYOND AID. This is the way to go to right the wrongs we have done over the years, in fact, since independence. Our first President never did it and subsequent regimes and governments failed to do it. Now we have a President who is pragmatic enough to seize the bull by the horns. We have to wean ourselves from our donors, we cannot and must not always run to them with begging bowls. This is the surest way to prevent them from pushing obnoxious practices down our throats. If we were able to wean ourselves from these so-called Donor Partners, they would not have the guts to tell us to accept their evil practices of Gayism, Lesbianism, and other forms of unprintable isms, all in the name of Human Rights which they themselves dont believe in.
These Donor Partners we fall on for our mainstay have built their countries on taxes. In fact, they impose taxes on everything including enforcing their tax laws on gifts and presents.
The tax authorities would have ensured Mahama paid gift tax on his infamous Ford Expedition, if it were in the USA, Germany or any other Western Country. We have to learn to pay taxes if we want good roads, good drinking water, clean environment, good health, good education, employment, etc, etc. The back of our hand cannot be tastier than the palm of our hand. We don’t have to depend on grants and excessive borrowing to build our country. We have to sacrifice a little to build a prosperous nation for the unborn generations that will come after us.
Hundred years from now, the country may not have any oil, the land may not be able to give us the cocoa yields we so much depend on, there may not be any timber to exploit, no minerals left in the ground. We do not prepare the future for our children. Rather, we prepare our children for the future. We have to invest in the youth to get good education so they can get good and sustainable jobs.
We all know too well that we have been depending on taxes and contributions to undertake any meaningful developmental projects in our communities. Churches develop through the collections, tithes and voluntary contributions they make and the mosques are no different. But when it comes to nation building, we are very reluctant to contribute our quota.
How many of our companies willingly file their tax returns at the end of the financial year? How many of our self-employed individuals pay direct taxes? Precious few! Indeed, Ghanaians are always reluctant to pay taxes and this has always been our bane. I remember too well in the colonial era when my mother and uncles would run away from home or hide under beds to dodge the Lampoo Krakye who came to collect the annual basic levies. We have never changed with time. In fact, we have become even worse so.
This Government has been proactive and pragmatic. It has found very innovative ways to get little taxes here and there for the development of the country. Digitalization has been a very effective means of plugging the numerous loopholes in our tax regimes. An extension to this digitalization is the e-levy which the Government is currently pursuing, to rope in every Ghanaian of taxable age. The E-LEVY is the best thing that has ever been proposed, for a sustainable national development. Borrowing should be on the barest minimum, grants are unreliable, what with the current state of affairs in the world. Direct taxes fetch too little for the country. If we all accept the concept of E-LEVY, the country would go very far and would be able to achieve our targets. Our educational needs would be well catered for, our infrastructural deficits would be taken care of, our health needs would be addressed. In fact, a whole lot would be achieved just by the introduction of this E-Levy.
I am tempted to believe that the Minority have seen the elephantine benefits that would be derived from the E-Levy that is why they are fighting at it baldheaded! Government should and must do all it can to push this through because this is the surest way to get all Ghanaians of taxable age to contribute something toward national development. If the opposition is so much opposed to borrowing and at the same time to taxation, then I believe they would suggest an alternative means of getting money for all the Government projects that have been lined up and all the social interventions being done. I believe the Minority were not opposed to the car loans for the parliamentarians and were also quick to take their double salaries. At the end of four years in parliament, they are not going to reject their ex-gratia and all other benefits rightly or wrongly due them. This is the time to help the Government put in pragmatic programs and measures to sanitize the tax systems in the country. They should not do anything to derail the good intentions of the Government.
E-LEVY is very innovative. It will help the country wean itself from our Shylock Donors who give with their right and take it back tenfold with their left. Let us learn to be patriotic, let us learn the art of giving and let us move out of small thinking and think and dream big. We are what we think we are. If we continue to blame the White man for all our woes, after almost seventy years of independence, then we shall forever remain in servitude. Faber est quisque suae fortunae. We are the architects of our own fortune. Let us pay this E-LEVY, Ghana and Ghanaians will be the ultimate winners.
SIGN…………..
MR KWASI SARPONG
FOUNDER PATRIOTIC VOICES
CONTACT: 0541791982
MR. ABUBAKARI YAKUBU, PRO FOR PATRIOTIC VOICES
CONTACT: 0260736392 OR 0545458677