Manufacturing, metal workers appeal to govt over payment of import duties
The General Manufacturing and Metal Workers Union (GEMM) of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) has appealed to the government to discontinue a directive that requires that exemption holders provisionally pay import duties and taxes upfront after which they apply for refund later.
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The General Secretary of the union, Mr Caleb Nartey, said the continuation of the directive by the government had negatively affected the operations of companies providing services in the mining industry, adding that eminent lay off of workers in that sector loomed if nothing was done about the prevailing situation.
Directive
During the presentation of the national budget in March this year at which some nuisance taxes were scrapped, the government directed importers to pay duties and taxes upfront and come for refund later.
The move was to allow the government to do a comprehensive review of the exemptions regime to reduce the widespread abuse of exemptions in the economy.
While addressing journalists in Accra last month, a Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, stated that importers would begin to benefit from the exemptions from October 1, 2017, once they met all requirements.
Concerns
However, speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra, Mr Nartey said the government had not resumed the tax exemption regime as promised.
He said since the directive came into force in April this year, some of the service providers were bearing excessive heat while trained professionals in the metal and mines sector were losing their sources of livelihood.
"Our position as a union is that, even though people abuse the tax exemption regime, it rests on the government to find out who the culprits are and deal with them appropriately because the general directive has affected people who are doing genuine business.”
"If companies are not able to bring in parts of machines, there will be no point keeping workers, and this is exactly what some workers are battling with," Mr Nartey stated.
Explaining further, he said the operational mines had enjoyed the tax exemption regime for about a decade.
Solidarity
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of GFL, Mr Abraham Koomson, entreated trade unions to show solidarity to workers in the struggles against what he termed as exploitation, bad economic policies of the government and mismanagement of the economy.
He said the government’s policies on boosting the production capacities of local industries to create job opportunities would not yield the desired results if the current economic environment was not made friendlier.
