Parliament of Ghana has approved a waiver of taxes and duties amounting to GH¢41.48 million for four state institutions.

The tax waiver is to relieve the four states institutions; the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT), Ministry of Regional Reorganization and Development (MRRD), Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and Inter-city STC Company Limited, of some financial burden to support their operations.

The waiver will allow the MMT to enjoy tax rebates of GH¢14.78 million to procure vehicles for its operations, while the MRRD will have a GH¢708,652 tax holiday on vehicles it intends to procure.

The approval will also pave the way for the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to have tax rebates amounting to GH¢841,645 on ammunition donated to it.

 The Inter-city STC Company Limited, on the other hand, will be receiving a tax break of GH¢25.14 million to enable it to acquire a fleet of vehicles.

The motion for request for the waivers was moved by the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, and seconded by the Ranking Member on the committee, Mr Cassiel Ato Forson.

The waivers include import duties, import Value Added Tax (VAT), the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) levy, the National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), the ECOWAS levy, the Ghana Export Import (EXIM) Bank levy, special import and African Union (AU) levies and other taxes totaling GH¢41.48 million for the four beneficiary institutions.

A Deputy Minister of Finance, Mrs Abena Osei Asare, on behalf of the Minister of Finance, presented the request to the House on Wednesday, February 19, 2020.

The Speaker subsequently referred the requests to the Finance Committee for consideration and report.

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Justifications

Tabling the report before Parliament yesterday, Dr Assibey-Yeboah said many people relied on the services of the MMT as an affordable means of commuting from one place to another.

He noted that, the MMT is however currently struggling to provide certain services as about 70 per cent of its buses had broken down, causing the company to suspend most of its operations.

“This has resulted in difficulties for many commuters who rely on MMT services,” he said, adding that in order to address those difficulties, the government had purchased 100 buses that had been deployed to various routes across the country.

“The government has also procured an additional 50 buses for the company. These buses have arrived at the Tema Port and the request is to enable the MMT to clear the buses and add them to its fleet,” he said.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah further disclosed that as part of efforts by the government to revamp Inter-city STC, the Ministry of Finance procured 100 buses for the company.

The buses, he said, were delivered in two batches in November 2019 and January 2020 and were currently at the port, awaiting clearance.

The request, he added, was, therefore, to enable the company to clear all 100 buses, at an estimated duty of GH¢25.14 million.