MEMBERS of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) today (18/10/11) let loose their individual frsutartions over what they described as the Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s “plethora of taxes” imposed on businesses operating within the assembly’s catchment area.
The members’ frutrations ranged from AMA’s bye-laws regarding payment of levies such as postage, business operating permits (BOP), property rates to the frequency and levels at which these fees are increased on annual bases.
The members registered their frustrations against the metro’s revenue generation policies at a question and answer session during the AGI’s Implementation of the Regional Action Plan for small, medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in the Greater Accra region. The programme had the MCE of the AMA, Dr Alfred Vanderpuiye as the guest speaker.
While contending that payment of levies to assemblies within which businesses operate was the duty of business entities, some of the members argued that the assembly’s taxing regime was “now becoming unbecoming.
“Why should I pay tax for putting an advert on my own wall? The wall is my wall; the very wall I got permit from the AMA to build to operate my buiness and so why would the AMA want me to to them a specific amount just because I kept a poster of my product there,” one member of the association who later pleaded for anonymity said during the discussion.
According him AMA’s policies on revenue generation “is crippling businesses rather than growing them” and thus called on the assembly to craft strategies that will motivate the springing up of businesses within the metropolis.
Some o fthe discussants furchallenged the AGI to test the legitimacy of the AMA to charge businesses for using their own walls to advertise their products.
On eo fthe discussants said “I think the AMA must be clear on what revenue it can collect and the ones it cannot. The AGI must test that in court,” a plea the association’s Vice President (small scale), Mr Samuel Agyapong Appenteng said was worth considering.
Some of the discussants also wondered the sort of criteria the assembly was using to arrive at its 10 per cent yearly increase in the amount charged as BOP fee.
According to them, the AMA ought to be transparent in its dealings with the business community.
Mr Appenteng later observed that “there has been a plethora of taxes introduced by the AMA in an attempt to generate revenue. But instead of making it a win-win situation for the business community and the AMA, the assembly is just working to its own good,” and thsu called on the AMA revenue geretaing team to devise strategies that will help put less burden on businesses.
Mrs Lydia Sackey Addy, the Director if Budgeting and a Rating Officer at the AMA who represented the mayor called on business persons to dialogue with the aseembly in issues regarding taxes.
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