Stop partisan trivialities against tax exemptions for businesses — Afenyo-Markin
The Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has called on the political class to stop playing politics with the government’s decision to grant tax exemptions to companies operating under the One-District, One-Factory (1D1F) policy.
He said such exemption would enable Ghanaian companies to become more competitive in the sub-region.
In his closing remarks at the end of the two-day extraordinary sitting of Parliament last Wednesday, the Majority Leader said it was unacceptable that in the name of politics, companies that had huge potential to contribute to Ghana’s economic fortunes would be deprived of critical tax breaks and incentives to spur their growth.
“If we are serious about our country, we will stop these political trivialities and move away from undue partisanship and look at the national interest to grow our businesses,” he said.
Mr Afenyo-Markin said: “Mr Speaker, it is unacceptable that we are destroying businesses and if we think that by destroying them we will come to power to have a fresh start and reset, I am sorry you are destroying your very eggs.”
“I think that we can do better than this as parliamentarians and do better than this as a political class and as people who have been elected to lead our people,” he added.
“Mr Speaker, we should have our disagreements but to destroy the business life of people who have their businesses in our economy and who believe in the policies and say that we are not going to pass exemptions when the committee of Parliament has done its work and has recommended to the plenary, and the plenary says by certain operations of politics, we are not taking them is worrying,” he said.
The House was due to approve a number of tax exemptions for companies operating under the 1D1F programme, but it stopped short of endorsing them due to disagreements.