President John Mahama
Government says it wants to plug all financial leakages caused by multinationals, who deliberately rebrand to evade taxes after five years of operation in Ghana.
Measures would be put in place to secure financial leakages in the oil and gas sector and by large the general extractive industry.
President John Mahama, who made this known during the plenary session of the G8 Summit in Lancaster, London in the United Kingdom (UK) on the theme: ‘Trade, Tax and Transparency’ said, “In Ghana, government has a vibrant media, strong civil society organizations, and is also a signatory to the Extractive Industries, Transparency Initiative (EITI) that will ensure that money accrued from the industry would be properly accounted.”
The President said apart from that government has also set up an accountability measure to ensure that the Ministry of Finance every year comes out with a report to Parliament to explain to all Ghanaians how much was generated from the sector and how it was utilized.
Ghana, Guinea, Tanzania and Senegal were invited by Prime Minister David Cameron to attend this year’s summit on account of the good governance, democracy and adequate measures to ensure transparency in the extractive industry.
President Mahama said Ghana’s transparency was evidenced by the fact that all financial reports were published for public consumption while budgets were presented to highlight achievements and failures.
He promised to leverage the rate of transparency that serves as an impetus and springboard for government to perform better in subsequent years.
According to him, the practice whereby companies were given tax holidays was injurious to the state coffers.
President Mahama called for the deregulation of investments in energy, agriculture and roads to speed up infrastructural development of the country.
He said Ghana’s deregulated investments in the telecommunication industry have yielded adequate benefits in the spread of technology.
He gave the assurance that liberalization in other sectors could yield similar benefits in various African countries.
President Mahama called on other African leaders to open up their economies to intra-African trade to harness the comparative advantage of various countries and promote the movement of goods and services on the continent.
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