Executive Secretary at Importers And Exporters Association Of Ghana Asaki Samson Awingobit, says the policy directive on the reversal of the reduction of values of imports on 43 selected items is a recipe for hardship.
He said the government is aware the outbreak of the Covid-19 outbreak is still affecting businesses hence the timing for the implementation of the directive on the reversal of the reduction on the benchmark values was bad.
The reversal will affect the selected items from all the three categories on which the reversal was applied, a statement from the Authority said.
The items to be affected include the home delivery value of vehicles, goods on which benchmark values are applied, and all other goods.
This means the Home Delivery Value of vehicles will no longer be discounted by 30%.
Per the directive, the full value shall apply without any reduction for all other goods, where the importer has an invoice for which the value is higher or lower than the established Transaction Price Database.
But Asaki Samson Awingobit says the directive is unfortunate, and the ”government knows that the year has not been good coupled with the Covid-19 and other factors.
He said: ”despite these challenges, the government in 2020, introduced new taxes even in the face of Covid-19. All these are burdens, but we never complained. This is not the way to go. We are asking the government to hold on. There was no stakeholder consultation before the decision was taken,” he added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana