{"id":462308,"date":"2018-02-07T14:44:54","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/07\/scrap-petroleum-tax-with-immediate-effect-kofi-buah\/"},"modified":"2018-02-07T14:44:54","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:44:54","slug":"scrap-petroleum-tax-with-immediate-effect-kofi-buah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/07\/scrap-petroleum-tax-with-immediate-effect-kofi-buah\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrap petroleum tax with immediate effect &#8211; Kofi Buah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Wednesday,  7 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>gbcghana.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-07<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/66349239.295.jpg\" alt=\"Emmanuel Kofi Buah Min Energy\" title=\"Emmanuel Kofi Buah Min Energy\" width=\"295\" height=\"174\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah, MP Ellembelle Constituency<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125817929577\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125817929577\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1518014694_361_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ellembelle Constituency of the Western Region, Mr. Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah, is proposing that the special petroleum tax is removed with immediate effect.<\/p>\n<p>According to the former Petroleum Minister under the erstwhile John Mahama administration, the tax has outlived its importance.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has called on government to scrap the Special Petroleum Tax (SPT) and other levies that have made the cost of petroleum products in the country shoot up.<\/p>\n<p>According to the chamber, the SPTspecifically has outlived its purpose and has now become a nuisance tax.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are mindful of several avoidable taxes on the petroleum pricing build up, and we want the government to do a downward review\u2026considering now that it is making income gains with the surge in world market prices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe call for the immediate removal of this particular tax and others as contained in our earlier petition to the president, so as to reduce unnecessary pressure on our pockets and stabilise the incomes of Ghanaian workers,\u201d Vice Chairman of the COPEC Council, Solomon Kotei, told journalists in Tema.<\/p>\n<p>Data released by the chamber show that fuel prices in Ghana are relatively higher than across the sub-region and among other petroleum producing countries.<\/p>\n<p>While a gallon of petrol costs between GH?7.74 and GH?15.27 in countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Dubai, USA and Russia, the same litre goes for GH?20.83 in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of these countries produce oil while others don\u2019t; but they are clearly not overcharging their people by way of taxes to push pump-prices above pockets,\u201d Mr. Koteiemphasised.<\/p>\n<p>Even though the SPT was reviewed downward from 17.5percent to 15percent in the 2017 budget, the chamber opines that the reduction was \u201csimply mathematical\u201d and does not reflect reality on the ground because consumers are now paying even more for the commodity.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of what the chamber sees to be an over-dependence on petroleum taxation, Mr. Kotei suggests that government must introduce new and ingenious ways of expanding the tax bracket to attract more revenue for its development programmes.<\/p>\n<p>This, he said, will offer some relief to Ghanaians, as it will \u201cease the pressure on our pockets\u201d and bring about some stability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHikes in petroleum prices are generally associated with hardships, hence the need to scale down some of the taxes choking the current price build-up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe net effect of these rampant increases in pump-prices goes with the surge in prices of foodstuffs, goods and services, as well as import duties and inflation\u2026basic necessities of life keep shooting up in the face of rather stagnant and meagre incomes and salaries of Ghanaian workers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: -1 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Wednesday, 7 February 2018 Source: gbcghana.com 2018-02-07 Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah, MP Ellembelle Constituency The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ellembelle Constituency of the Western Region, Mr. Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah, is proposing that the special petroleum tax is removed with immediate effect. According to the former Petroleum Minister under the erstwhile John Mahama [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":461420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}