The Greater Accra Region’s organized labor claims it is not prepared to negotiate with the government over the fifteen percent Value Added Tax (VAT) that is applied to residential consumers’ power usage.
The chairperson of Greater Accra, Patrick Benyemi, emphasized yesterday at a press conference in Accra that “organized labor’s position is a total and unconditional withdrawal of the 15% VAT and not suspension of it.”
He warned that organized laborers would take to the streets on Tuesday to press their demands if the government did not respond to them.
Mr. Benyemi clarified that the situation of the already stressed populace would worsen if the VAT was implemented.
As the organized labor of Greater Accra, we stand in solidarity with our country’s authorities and emphasize that we are unable to pay VAT on energy.
“We’re not going to pay for it now, and we won’t pay it tomorrow. The proposal to implement a 15 percent value-added tax on energy usage is categorically opposed by organized labor in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, he declared.
He called the idea regressive and claimed that it would jeopardize the livelihoods of industrious Ghanaians and harm the stability of the country’s economy.
He claimed that electricity was not a luxury but rather a basic necessity for both daily living and economic productivity and that taxing it would only serve to increase inequality and the divide between the affluent and the weaker members of our society.
