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Terkper concedes to over-burdening Ghanaians with taxes

“We have fallen into some bad habit of doing commercial projects and then asking the taxpayer to pay for it.”

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Mr. Terkper, however believes the impact of the taxes could have been reduced if government’s state-owned enterprises had been ran better. He believes proceeds from the enterprises could have paid the country’s loans.

In a press briefing in Accra, Mr. Terkper said “We have fallen into some bad habit of doing commercial projects and then asking the taxpayer to pay for it.”

Mr. Terkper said government had revised its debt management strategies and had initiated a policy that would ensure that “if we borrow for commercial developments, the projects should pay for the loan.

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“It shouldn’t be the taxpayer and so today we have the developments at the airport on self-financ­ing basis; we’ve put the expansion taking place at Takoradi on self-financing basis; the Tamale Airport is on self-financing basis,” the Finance Minister noted.

“The subsidies which we couldn’t pay, we are paying now after years of accumulation in the form of taxes and levies,” he admitted.

To take the burden of government, a major structuring of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is underway.

The only government entities that are allowed to make profits are the SOEs. They must come back to trimming their costs and making profits and to the extent that government is part of their dilemma in terms of subsidies and arrears, we must also make that correction so we can have a sound economy.

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