Import duties in Ghana will be the same in Lome or even lower – Dr Bawumia promises
The Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has promised that if he is elected president in this year’s elections, his administration will ensure that the import duties in Ghana are not above those of Lome, Togo.
He observed that Lome port is a major competitor for Ghana. People usually import goods through the Lome port and smuggle them into Ghana.
To stop the smuggling, he said, Ghana will charge the same import duties as Lome or even lower.
“Tema port will be fully automated. We are bringing a new policy for import duty, we are going to align the import duty at Tema port with the import duty at the Lome Port. The ports in Ghana will not charge higher duties than the ports in Lome, this is our policy, we will not charge higher duties because they are our competitors.
“If you are higher all the containers will go to Lome and they will smuggle them into Ghana and you will lose the revenue so we are going to make sure that under a new policy, we will be either lower or the same as Lome. That is the policy and that will help our business people, no need for smuggling,” Dr Bawumia said in a breakfast meeting with NPP regional leaders ahead of his start of the campaign activities, on Monday, April 29.
Touting his achievements, for the first time in the history of Ghana, consumers of electricity can sit in the comfort of their homes or wherever they find themselves and buy electric power without having to join any line at the offices of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
This, he said, is among the list of innovative measures introduced by the Akufo-Addo administration.
“For the first time in our history, people can buy electricity units on their mobile phones, we take it for granted now but a few years ago you had to go and queue at the ECG payment center to buy electricity,”
He further indicated that the government has built more courts for the judiciary than any other government did.
Also, he said, the government has provided cars and equipment to the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police more than any government.
“Our government has implemented many transformational policies. for the first time in our history as a country, Ghana has successfully issued a digital national ID card which has provided a unique identity for all Ghanains.
“For the first time in our history, Ghana has implemented Mobile Money interoperability between the Mobile Money accounts of telcos and the bank accounts of the banks. Ghana is the first country in the whole of Africa to have done this Mobile Money Inyterorpablity between bank accounts and MoMo accounts.
This has made Ghana the fastest-growing mobile money market in Africa. In fact, when we came into office MoMo transactions in Ghana were just 78 cedis per year. Last year they reached GHS1.9 trillion cedis, it tells you what we have done,” he said.
