In order to keep plastic manufacturing enterprises afloat, the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has called for the immediate removal of the 5% excise tax.
The Union Secretary General, Alpha Shaban, said in a news release on Wednesday, July 3, “We do not want to believe government is being insensitive to the plight of the business community and Ghanaians as well by imposing such a tax on plastic manufacturers in the country.”
Given the current state of the cedi, rising electricity costs, and other levies that the business community is facing, GUTA is especially concerned about the tax’s introduction.
As the administration is supposedly pushing for import substitution and an industrialization programme, the Union questioned the economic logic of such a policy.
They claim that putting “such an obnoxious tax on local manufacturing companies” will cause “businesses that are already suffocating due to unbearable taxes in the system to collapse.”
The business community “can no longer accept any additional layer of cost to doing business in the country,” the Union stressed, thus they urged the government to immediately halt the 5% excise tax’s introduction in order to lessen hardship for the people of the nation.