[ 2016-08-23 ]

We’ve taxed Ghanaians too unduly – Terkper
The Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper, has
admitted the undue taxation of Ghanaians when the
government could have ensured that State Owned
Enterprises and development projects were well
managed to be able to pay for loans taken.

According to the Minister, “We have fallen into
some bad habit of doing commercial projects and
then asking the taxpayer to pay for it.”

Mr Terkper, who was speaking during a press
briefing session in Accra yesterday, indicated
that the government had made some corrections to
its debt management strategies and had initiated a
policy that would ensure that “if we borrow for
commercial developments, the projects should pay
for the loan.”

“It shouldn’t be the taxpayer and so today we
have the developments at the airport on
self-financ­ing basis; we’ve put the expansion
taking place at Takoradi on self-financing basis;
the Tamale Airport is on self-financing basis,”
the Finance Minister noted.

Responding to queries about the status of the Tema
Oil Refinery (TOR) debt and whether the government
had stopped paying the debt, the Minister was
unable to readily provide the level of debt except
to say that the debt was ring-fenced.

“What we need to do is to get the right policy
in place to help our SOEs not to fall into debt
and then we fall on the taxpayer,” he said.

He attributed the existence of the TOR and VRA
debts to give­ornaments inability to pay
subsidies.

“The subsidies which we couldn’t pay, we are
paying now after years of accumulation in the form
of taxes and levies,” he admitted.

To take the burden of government, a major
structuring of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is
underway.

The only government entities that are allowed to
make profits are the SOEs. They must come back to
trimming their costs and making profits and to the
extent that government is part of their dilemma in
terms of subsidies and arrears, we must also make
that correction so we can have a sound economy.

Source - The Finder

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